Our guess is never. 

That’s because a typical purchasing experience is much more complex than ‘see the product, buy the product.’

Instead, there are levels to this.

In particular, those levels comprise your buyer’s journey and the different stages of your sales funnel – and content mapping is how you present the right content at each level.  

For example, if you’re like 89% of other customers online, your buyer’s journey begins by researching products using a search engine like Google. 

At this stage, you’re looking for informative, educational content about the products you’re interested in eventually buying. 

So, if your customers do a search hoping to find information but land on product pages pushing hard for them to convert, they’ll likely click away. 

In that scenario, your content mapping was off, as you presented the customer with content appropriate for the very end of their buyer’s journey, not the beginning. 

When your content mapping is done correctly, you’ll always present the perfect content to your customers at the right time, effectively making you a mind reader. 

Stay tuned to learn how to master the impressive power of content mapping for your business.

Why Bother with Content Mapping?

If you’ve been doing SEO for a while now, you may be on the fence about putting the effort into creating a proper content map. 

After all, if you’re ranking high for your target keywords, why fix what isn’t broken by throwing a content map into the mix?

Well, while your rankings may be where you want them, your conversion rates, bounce rates, and dwell times are likely off. 

That’s because, without proper mapping, you aren’t satisfying each visitor’s search intent, likely causing them to leave without completing your desired action (i.e., signing up for your newsletter, making a purchase, etc.). 

In other words, content mapping helps you get the most out of your SEO efforts. 

Even with lots of #1 rankings, if you aren’t fulfilling the search intent of your organic visitors, your bank account won’t grow – and you won’t build a loyal customer base, either. 

If visitors simply leave a few seconds after landing on one of your web pages, all that hard work you put into obtaining high rankings was for nothing. 

For this reason, content mapping and SEO go hand-in-hand, as you wouldn’t want to have one without the other. 

If you want to see more conversions and build a better reputation, you must build a picture-perfect customer experience through content mapping, so let’s learn how.

Creating a Winning Content Map for Your Business 

Avast, ye matey! 

There’s a treasure to be had in the form of more online revenue, and content mapping is how you find the X that marks the spot. 

To create a content map, you need to have an intricate understanding of your target audience, which brings us to the first step. 

Step #1: Build buyer personas 

A buyer persona (also called a customer avatar) is a fictional representative of a member of your target audience. 

Buyer personas are where you put your market research to work as you build them based on surveys and interviews with your existing customers. 

If you don’t have that kind of data yet, then now is the time to get cracking and start talking to your customers. 

Besides market surveys, you can also peer inside your customer’s minds by frequenting their favorite online haunts. Facebook and Reddit Groups, Quora, LinkedIn, and other popular social media platforms are great places to start. 

AI is also a massive help with this, as AI programs like ExactBuyer are capable of doing deep dives into vast volumes of customer data, helping you build extremely accurate personas as a result. 

When building personas manually, each should be fully fleshed out and contain things like:

• Name 
• Occupation
• Gender
• Address
• Average income
• Hobbies
• Goals (what do they want to achieve more than anything else, and can your products help?)
• Challenges (what pain points do they have that your products can solve?) 
• Shopping habits (when they are most likely to shop, what kind of content they prefer, etc.) 

Don’t limit yourself to creating just one buyer persona, especially if your products appeal to a few different audiences. 

If you notice common characteristics among a specific buyer persona segment, don’t hesitate to split it into two. 

Step #2: Mapping out your buyer’s journey 

Next, it’s time to map out the specific buyer’s journey for each one of your buyer’s personas. 

AI is helpful for this stage, too, as AI-powered tools will help you understand the specific shopping habits of your personas based on complex data analysis. 

For example, let’s say you sell guitars and have three buyer personas: gearheads, serious musicians, and wealthy collectors. 

The buyer’s journey of a wealthy collector will look much different than that of a serious musician. 

Wealthy collectors will want to learn about your rarest and most visually appealing guitars, regardless of price. 

Serious musicians will want to dive into informative content about things like tonality, the wood used, and durability for playing shows. They’re also more likely to be concerned with price. 

Gearheads are all about specs, specs, and more specs, so they’ll eat up buyers’ guides that contain lots of technical details. 

Step #3: Brainstorm content ideas for each stage of the buyer’s journey/sales funnel 

Lastly, it’s time to match content ideas with each stage of your buyer’s journey, which looks something like this;

• Awareness stage. This is when the customer knows they have a problem they need to solve with a product. Informational content is the way to go here, such as blogs explaining how your products will solve their problem. 
• Consideration stage. At this point, they’re researching providers, so you should provide content like buyer’s guides, product reviews, and testimonials from satisfied customers. 
• Decision stage. They’re now ready to make a purchase, so you should hit them with your strongest product pages that have solid CTAs (calls to action). 

The buyer’s journey conveniently aligns with the stages of your sales funnel, which look something like this:

• Top of the funnel (TOFU). This is the awareness stage when the customer knows they need a solution to their problem. Informative and educational blog posts outlining their problem and how your products help are perfect TOFU content. 
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU). Aligned with the consideration stage, the customer is now actively researching providers, so you need to convince them that you’re the best with stellar reviews and outstanding case studies. 
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU). Equivalent to the decision stage, your customer is about to pull the trigger with a provider, so you need to convince them to point the gun at you (metaphorically, of course). Detailed product and landing pages that value benefits over features are great forms of BOFU content. 

Mapping Your Way to SEO Success 

That’s all it takes to create a content map for your SEO strategy, and the benefits are well worth the time it takes to build one. 

Don’t just map things out in your mind, though, as you should contain your content map in a document like a spreadsheet. Include the stages of your buyer’s journey/sales funnel at the top, including your content ideas for each level. 

If you want to enjoy a winning SEO strategy without having to lift a finger, don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our renowned managed SEO service

The post Content Mapping: The Secret to Reading Your Customer’s Minds appeared first on The HOTH.

If so, you’ll need an airtight content marketing strategy to attract new prospects and rise to the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages). 

Content creation is so effective that 82% of marketers actively invest in content marketing. 

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 67% of marketers report that their content helps generate leads, and 72% say it’s excellent for educating their audience. 

These stats reflect the importance of content production for modern businesses, but how are you supposed to keep up with the competition?

After all, for a content strategy to find success, consistency is key. 

The frequency of your posts also matters as you should try to blog at least 2 – 4 times a week, not to mention releasing new social media posts as often as you can (without sacrificing quality, of course). 

Trying to put together a quality content strategy without a way to stay organized isn’t fun, as you’ll waste time keeping track of email threads, checking up on projects, and coming up with new content ideas. 

That’s why you must create an editorial calendar for all your content. 

Trust us, a detailed content calendar will revolutionize your entire strategy, so don’t wait to check out the 10 reasons why we love content calendars. 

Understanding Content Calendars 

A content calendar is a central location that contains all your upcoming pieces of content, their due dates, and the names of the content creators assigned to complete them. 

It’s an invaluable project management tool for content planning & production, as it will help you stay consistent with your content efforts. 

As mentioned previously, a successful content strategy is all about releasing relevant content to your target audience on a consistent basis. 

The more consistent you are with your content, the better it is for your SEO profile – and your target audience will learn when to expect your upcoming content. 

Your content calendar should encompass all the types of content you produce, not just blogs. Be sure to include videos, infographics, and social posts in your content marketing calendar as well. 

That way, you’ll only have to monitor one location to keep track of your entire content strategy instead of having to bounce back and forth between multiple apps. 

There are lots of ways to go about developing a content calendar, from using advanced project management tools like Asana to creating one manually in Excel or using a free content calendar template that you find online. 

Whatever method you choose, creating a content calendar will streamline your workflows, improve the quality of your content, aid in brainstorming new ideas, and keep track of your freelancers & content creators. 

Speaking from personal experience, we don’t know what we’d do without our precious content calendar at The HOTH. It keeps our posting schedule consistent and provides accountability for our content creators, which is why you should develop one too. 

10 Reasons Why Marketers Love Content Calendars 

Content calendars are to digital marketers what daily planners are for busy professionals; they’re a priceless resource that helps keep everything organized and running smoothly. 

Imagine how difficult it would be to stay on top of all your meetings and corporate events without your handy business calendar.

That’s how hard it is for digital marketers & content strategists to keep track of their publishing schedules without their trusty content calendars. 

If you’re still on the fence about developing one for your business, here are the top 10 reasons why we love content calendars. 

#1: They take the stress out of content creation 

When it comes to your content strategy, flying by the seat of your pants is a recipe for elevated stress levels. 

That’s because a content schedule has so many moving parts that trying to keep track of it all without a calendar will drive you crazy. 

Every day, you’ll have to brainstorm new content ideas, select which social media platforms to post on, and scramble to edit & publish content your creators submitted in the days prior. In other words, it’ll be a constant struggle to keep your head above water, which is bad for both your content strategy and your mental health. 

Missed due dates, inaccurate facts, and irrelevant content can all occur easier than you think if you don’t have a reliable way to stay organized. 

To get ahead of the curve, you need a content calendar to plan out your posts in advance, keep track of assignments, and maintain a consistent publishing schedule. 

Doing this will not only supercharge your content strategy but will provide tremendous stress relief on your part. 

No longer will you have to show up to work in a state of panic, scrambling to put together a few posts or videos each week. 

Instead, you can rest easy at night knowing that you have two full weeks of posts already outlined and ready to go. 

#2: They help you maintain consistency 

If you want to generate lots of organic traffic, leads, and sales from your content marketing strategy, you have to be remarkably consistent with your efforts. 

As shared previously, you need to post blogs several times a week, as well as post to social media platforms at least once a day. That’s not even mentioning the videos, webinars, eBooks, and press releases you need to consistently release, either. 

With such steep content demands, your content calendar is the secret weapon that keeps you on track. 

Publishing 4 unique blogs a week won’t seem like such an impossible task when you have a central location to brainstorm ideas, outline topics, and assign posts to writers with detailed instructions. 

If you ever feel a bit lost, taking a peek at your calendar view is all it takes to understand where you are and where you need to be. Some content calendar apps, like Asana, allow you to color-code tasks to distinguish the type of content, social media channels, the assignee, and more. 

That makes it effortless to keep track of your marketing team as they complete their assignments. 

With a properly organized content calendar, you won’t have any trouble meeting your publishing goals week after week, gaining new customers, and boosting your SEO profile along the way. 

#3: A bigger ROI for your content marketing campaigns

Your content calendar will grant you the biggest superpower there is for improving ROI – more time to plan. 

By taking the time to put together a detailed editorial calendar, you’ll be able to develop relevant, evergreen pieces of content for your audience that will continue to earn you money years down the line. 

What’s evergreen content?

Content is evergreen whenever it remains fresh to readers for a long period of time. Publishing a piece of evergreen content will yield a higher ROI than a time-sensitive piece. 

Examples of evergreen content include product reviews, how-to tutorials, and listicles that cover topics that don’t go out of date. For instance, a how-to video teaching the viewer how to restring a guitar will have tremendous longevity, as there’s no clear ‘expiration date’ for it.

Compare that to a piece entitled ‘Key Takeaways from the 2023 Guitar Expo,’ which has a clear date when it becomes obsolete. As soon as 2023 is over (or even after a few months pass), interest in the Guitar Expo will fade, whereas learning a practical skill like stringing a guitar won’t see such a dramatic dropoff. 

The luxury of a content calendar will allow you to come up with more evergreen ideas instead of producing one-off posts that will only see one spike in traffic before fading into obscurity. 

#4: They enhance the overall quality of your content 

With a social media content calendar guiding your efforts, you’ll see an improvement in the quality of all your content. 

More time to plan means more fleshed-out content ideas, better writing, tighter editing, and streamlined workflows. That will make your blogs more insightful, videos more impactful, and infographics more eye-grabbing. 

Better quality content means more conversions, organic traffic, and improved metrics like CTR (click-through rate) and bounce rate. 

If you’re a startup or small business struggling to compete in your niche, a content calendar can be just what you need to even the playing field. That’s because a well-thought-out strategy with unique, high-quality content will help set you apart from the crowd. 

Instead of struggling to release any content at all, you’ll have enough time to plan stand-out posts & videos that outdo your peers – carving out a space for your business in the fiercely competitive market. 

#5: Improved metrics & data analysis 

Having a content calendar will make it far easier to track & analyze the performance of your content, which will help you tweak your strategy to perfection. 

In particular, you should pay close attention to your audience’s feedback and engagement levels with your content. 

Are your readers leaving comments on your posts? Have you seen an uptake in newsletter signups & conversions? How long are users staying on a piece of your content before clicking off to another page?

These questions all become far easier to answer with a content calendar.

Why is that?

It’s because you’ll have all your content in one convenient location, making it effortless to find & track your older posts. 

Monitoring your metrics and making any necessary adjustments to your strategy is how you find the most success with releasing content. 

For instance, you may uncover that your CTR is dwindling, meaning not enough users are clicking on your hyperlinks from search engines. That’s a sign that your meta titles aren’t attention-grabbing enough, so adding some pizazz to them should solve the issue. 

That’s only one example of how your content calendar can improve your metrics & data analysis. You can also analyze your traffic & engagement metrics through tools like Google Analytics to uncover the best times to post new content. 

#6: They foster innovation & creativity 

It’s challenging to think outside the box and get creative with your content when you’re simply trying to keep your head above water. 

A proper content calendar will remedy that issue, granting you plenty of time to research, plan, and outline all your posts. 

As such, it’ll be easier to innovate and develop more creative ideas, which will help you stand out from the crowd. Instead of simply copying what everyone else is doing, you’ll be able to find ways to set your brand apart. 

That could mean shooting interactive videos, writing blogs that provide unique insights & first-hand experience (which is now more crucial than ever due to the E-E-A-T update), and creating informative infographics that have fun custom illustrations. 

With the additional breathing room an editorial calendar provides, you’ll have time to brainstorm new ways to earn extra revenue through your content. 

For instance, why not sign up for a few affiliate programs and start linking to relevant products in your blogs & videos? Anything you earn can help pay for your content efforts, which will preserve your budget. 

You can also start thinking about writing guest posts to acquire high-authority backlinks, which will boost your SEO profile. 

#7: They enable you to work at maximum efficiency 

Content marketing is very demanding, and if you aren’t highly efficient at producing content, you’ll likely get overshadowed by your competitors. 

You need to plan content for upcoming corporate events, product launches, holidays, and news events, which means you’ll be working around the clock unless you have a content calendar. 

Taking a quick peek at your calendar will inform you of any upcoming events or launches that you need to plan content for, which will prevent it from creeping up on you at the last minute. After all, nothing is worse than having to slap together a piece of substandard content just to make a crucial publishing date.

In addition, your content calendar serves as a hub for your content team, enabling you to monitor their progress on their assigned tasks. 

That’s excellent news for your efficiency, as you’ll be able to stay ahead of any issues before they affect your release dates. If any of your team members are falling behind with their tasks, you’ll be able to see it in your content calendar before it becomes a real issue – giving you the time to reassign the task to someone else. 

Working at maximum efficiency will perform miracles for your content strategy and SEO profile, which is definitely a plus. 

#8: They provide consistency for your audience 

Besides catering to search engine algorithms, posting content consistently will also benefit your audience. 

That’s because they’ll get used to your regular release schedule and will look forward to your content each week – which is a fantastic way to build a loyal customer base. 

You’ll likely have inconsistent publishing dates without an editorial calendar, which won’t do your business any favors. 

Think about it this way; do you subscribe to any prominent content creators on YouTube or other platforms? 

In that case, it’s probably because they uploaded so consistently that you started to rely on seeing new high-quality uploads each week. 

The same principle applies to your blogs, videos, podcasts, and other forms of content. Your audience will grow more rapidly if you remain consistent with your publishing schedule. 

#9: A content calendar unifies your content creation team 

You’re wasting a ton of time if you have to bounce back and forth between apps and spreadsheets to monitor your content creators. 

That’s why you need to make your content calendar the central hub for all your content creators. 

With tools like Trello & Asana, you can assign tasks, monitor progress, and check deadlines all from your content calendar. That ensures that your entire content creation team always remains on the same page. 

Not only that, but your team can communicate with one another through the built-in messaging system to ask questions & pass off tasks (i.e., a writer assigning a blog draft to an editor) without the need for your input. 

Even a simple content calendar created in Excel will align your team, as it gives them (and you) one easy location to look for their assignments and due dates. 

#10: Content calendars let you plan for the future 

The final reason we adore content calendars so much is they enable you to look at the big picture – not only for your content strategy but for your business as a whole. 

Rather than focusing on what you have to release in the next day or week, a content calendar lets you project much further into the future. You’ll be able to ponder your business needs for the coming months & years, all while brainstorming innovative new content ideas. 

You won’t enjoy this freedom of thought if you’re struggling to stay on top of your content needs day by day. A detailed content calendar will help you plan for a bright future for your business, which is why using one is an absolute must for any marketing team. 

Final Thoughts: 10 Reasons Marketers Love Their Content Calendars 

A content calendar provides marketing teams with so many benefits; it’s no wonder why we love them so much. 

They serve as our central planner, think tank, social media management hub, workflow manager, and so much more. 

Have you not developed a content calendar & content strategy for your business?

Then you need to drop everything and check out our fully managed content services. If you’re looking for top-tier content creation, our experts at HOTH Blogger won’t let you down, so don’t wait to check us out today.       

The post 10 Reasons Marketers Love Their Content Calendars appeared first on The HOTH.

Why is that?

There are more than a few reasons why. 

For one, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and that includes potential shoppers. Also, organic search drives 53.3% of all website traffic, and creating high-quality content is the most reliable way to snag that traffic for yourself. 

Another reason content creation is such a necessary marketing strategy in today’s age is the ineffectiveness of other marketing channels. 

For instance, a majority of internet users aged 16 to 64 use ad blockers (42.7%), rendering any digital ads you paid for mostly useless. Not only that, but advertising on TV & radio is expensive and not an option for many small businesses and startups. 

On the other hand, businesses of all sizes can write blog posts and shoot simple videos to generate traffic, leads, and sales – which is why content marketing strategies are so powerful.

With a little optimization & keyword research, your pieces of content will improve your visibility on search engines and social media, which is what you want.  

If you’re brand-new to the content creation process, don’t fret because we’re here to teach you how to develop a winning content strategy, regardless of your budget. Stay tuned to learn how to start creating great content for your business.

Why Does Content Creation Matter?

Creating content is vital in today’s age because it’s the ultimate inbound marketing technique. 

What’s inbound marketing?

It’s where you attract potential customers to your website instead of disrupting their online experience with intrusive ads and videos.

By creating valuable content that educates users and answers their most pressing questions, you will draw prospects straight to your website through search engines. From there, the strength of your CTAs (calls to action) and sales funnel will help you convert clicks into customers.

Content marketing is immensely popular due to how effective it is, with 67% (up 7%) of marketers reporting that content generates demand & leads, 72% (2% increase) reporting that it helps educate their audience, and 63% (3% increase) claiming it builds loyalty amongst existing customers. 

The kicker?

These stats are all on the rise, with significant percentage increases since the previous year, meaning that content creation is becoming even more effective. 

As you can gather from those statistics, content does a lot more for your brand than generate more leads & sales. Regularly releasing high-quality content will also:

• Generate brand awareness
• Establish your brand as a thought leader in your field 
• Build loyalty and trust among customers 
• Bolster your company’s reputation 

All these reasons are why it’s worth investing in creating engaging content for your target audience – so it’s best to jump on the content bandwagon sooner rather than later. The good news is that creating a content strategy doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, and even the smallest companies can do it. 

That’s especially true with the advent of artificial intelligence programs capable of generating entire blog posts at the push of a button. 

Reasons to Invest in Content Creation

While PPC ads are excellent for gaining short-term online visibility, you need an organic SEO strategy to go along with it. That way, once your content marketing efforts begin to take off, you can ease off the gas with your PPC campaigns, saving a considerable chunk of your budget. 

Content marketing campaigns are also excellent for improving your visibility on not only search engines but also social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. 

In today’s age, a majority of people are online instead of tuning into television or radio (more than 8 in 10 Americans exclusively use the internet for news and media), which is why creating online content is the best way to get the word out about your business. 

Bearing that in mind, here’s a look at some of the top reasons to invest in content creation.

Reaching the unreachable 

As stated before, many adults choose to browse the web with ad-blockers, rendering most digital online ads obsolete. 

How do you reach these users?

You can reach them by creating the kind of content that they will actively seek out and consume on their own, which is the core principle behind inbound marketing. 

If that sounds confusing, consider this example of a typical internet user that can’t stand online ads. Whether it’s a brief ad before a video or a pop-up, they can’t click away fast enough, and they have every ad blocker known to man. 

While it may seem impossible to advertise anything to them, the right types of content will have them reaching for their debit cards. 

Let’s say that they love to fish, and you sell fishing rods and equipment. Instead of disrupting their experience with an ad (that they’ll click off of anyway), you produce a mix of helpful blogs and videos covering popular fishing topics. 

One day, the user wants to learn more about fly fishing, and they come across a blog you wrote entitled ‘The Ultimate Guide to Fly Fishing.’ They read the post from top to bottom and noticed a convincing CTA at the end:

Want to get started fly fishing? Don’t wait to check out our collection of high-quality rods today.

They click on the link and immediately place an order for a new fly fishing rod. That’s the power of content creation in a nutshell, and it’s how you can reach the unreachable. 

Improve your online visibility 

Having a website won’t amount to much if nobody is able to find it. If your website isn’t in Google’s index, it may as well not even exist. 

Search engines are the #1 way that users discover new websites, which is why SEO is such a big deal amongst digital marketers. Yet, being indexed by search engines is only the beginning of the battle, as ranking below the top 20 results is almost equal to not even being indexed. 

Rising through search engine rankings is no easy feat, which is why content creation is such a coveted practice amongst SEOs. 

There’s no better way to improve your online visibility than by creating a large volume of high-quality website content that’s relevant & valuable to your audience. Good content also makes it far easier to acquire high-authority backlinks, which are a necessity for high SERP rankings. 

Essentially, your content is what drives your SEO strategy and brand-building efforts. 

Also, the more excellent content you release, the more visibility you’ll gain on social media platforms as well. As a rule of thumb, every time you release a blog post, podcast, infographic, or video – release it on all your social media platforms at the same time to maximize visibility. 

Consistently generate leads & conversions

The great thing about content is that once it’s published, it will continue generating leads and sales for you for many months to come. 

In other words, the one-time expense of creating content will pay off more than once, assuming that the content is high-quality and relevant. 

Lead magnet tools like white papers and eBooks will consistently provide leads for your sales team, and convincing CTAs will continue to land sales well into the future. Once a piece of content becomes outdated, simply updating it will make it relevant again, and it will go back to generating traffic for your business. 

By creating content for each stage of the sales funnel, you’ll be able to cater to potential customers that are ready to buy – as well as educate customers that are still in the research phase.

(Image Source)

The Most Popular Types of Content 

It should be clear by now that content creation is well worth your while, so you’ll need some content ideas to get started. 

When most people think of online content, they tend to think of blogs, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to blogs, there are whitepapers, eBooks, videos, infographics, podcasts, webinars, case studies, social media posts, and many others.

How do you know which type of content to create?

That will depend on a few factors, including your budget, the needs of your target audience, and what you hope to achieve from the content. 

For instance, if you want to collect email addresses from users, offering a free eBook is a great choice. If your goal is to wow and entertain your audience, then fun & engaging video content is the way to go. 

Here’s a look at some of the most popular types of content you’ll encounter when browsing the web. 

Blog Posts 

Blogs are the most common type of content you’ll run into online, which is due to how inexpensive they are to create and their versatility. 

They can take the form of listicles, reviews, opinion pieces, product showcases, and so much more. Blogs can be formal, informal, humorous, and any other tone you want to take with your audience. 

Blogging is a highly effective form of content marketing, as businesses that produce blog content receive 55% more visitors than ones that do not, and they generate 67% more leads each month. 

However, there are more than 600 million blogs online, which will undoubtedly include thousands of blogs within your niche, so you’ll need to find a way to make your content stand out. 

Here are a few quick blog post ideas you can use to create new content.

Answer questions relevant to your target audience

If you want your blog to generate clicks, your content needs to provide real value to your audience – and one of the best ways to do that is to answer your audience’s questions about your field of expertise. 

What kinds of questions is your audience asking?

To find out, you can venture to websites like Reddit & Quora and search for your niche. From there, pay attention to the questions you see asked over and over again, and then create blog content answering them. 

This is a highly effective technique because you intercept prospects looking for answers to their questions, and you get to introduce them to your brand, products, and services. 

Facebook Groups are also goldmines for uncovering the top problems your target audience faces on a daily basis. By answering their questions and solving their issues through helpful blog content, you’ll start to be seen as a thought leader. As such, anytime your audience has questions related to your niche in the future; your blog will be the first place they check. 

Another tactic is to type a question about your niche into Google and then check the ‘People Also Asked’ section for more questions relevant to your audience. These questions are valuable because they’re real questions your prospects asked Google, so they’ll make perfect blog topics. 

Create a listicle 

The most popular blog format online is an odd-numbered listicle, so don’t hesitate to join the craze if you need to generate more traffic. 

A big reason why they work so well is the attention-grabbing nature of a listicle’s headline. They’re also very scanner-friendly, enabling readers to quickly scan each numbered subheading to determine if reading the entire post is worth their time. 

The great thing about listicles is they work for just about any topic, regardless of industry. 

Going with the fishing example from before, you could develop all sorts of listicles, such as ‘The Top 5 Reasons to Try Fly Fishing,’ ‘The 13 Best Fishing Rods You Have to Try,’ and ‘6 Reasons You Need to Change Your Bait.’

As you can see, each listicle covers a different topic, and the number in the title makes them stand out more. 

As such, listicles should comprise a large portion of your blogging strategy because of how good they are at catching readers’ attention. 

How-to tutorials 

Another highly popular blog format is the classic how-to post, where you teach readers a new skill in a step-by-step breakdown. 

How-to posts are excellent because they cater to the core principle of inbound marketing – getting your customers to come to you. If you can uncover the things your target audience wants to learn how to do the most & create tutorials for them, they’ll come flooding to your website in droves.

For all the anglers that have never used a fishing lure before, writing a detailed blog tutorial on how to fish with lures will generate lots of traffic. 

Before you create a how-to blog post, ensure that the method you’re going to teach is safe, accurate, and reliable. The last thing you want is to give your audience unreliable advice, which will tarnish your reputation instead of improving it. 

Videos 

In 2023, videos are set to account for 82.5% of all web traffic, making it the most popular type of content online. 

That means no content marketing strategy is complete without including some sort of video content, as companies can no longer afford to ignore the prevalence & popularity of online videos. 

Visual content is easier for users to consume, and video production has become rather inexpensive, so even smaller companies can join in on the fun. With an iPhone and some basic editing software, you can create informative & engaging videos to go along with your blog posts and infographics. 

Like blog posts, videos are highly versatile, as they can inform, educate, entertain, and more. 

Also, you can tweak some of your blog ideas to make them work as videos instead. So the next time you sit down for a content brainstorming session, don’t forget that listicles and how-to tutorials can just as easily be videos as blog posts. 

Podcasts

Content creators shouldn’t forget about podcasts, as there are 464.7 million podcast listeners worldwide as of 2023. 

People love listening to podcasts while commuting to work, completing menial tasks, and exercising – making them a fantastic way to reach your audience. Like videos, podcasts are relatively inexpensive to produce since all you need is a mic and an internet connection. 

There are thousands of online podcasts spanning all industries, from financial planning to real estate and many more. 

A tried and true podcast format is to interview influencers and notable figures from your field to provide your audience with value. You can also use your podcast to discuss current trends, answer questions from listeners, and hold special contests and giveaways. 

Infographics 

An informative infographic is one of the most powerful content types for acquiring high-authority backlinks. If you’re able to compile relevant statistics and figures in a fun & interesting way, other bloggers will want to link to it in their posts, which will boost your SEO profile. 

They’re also fantastic for sprucing up plain-text blog posts. 

By including infographics with top-notch graphic design, your readers will have something visual to interact with, which will break up the monotony of walls of text. 

Besides using infographics to display statistics, you can also use them for visual storytelling, which can have a powerful effect on your audience. 

For instance, if you’re able to convey the benefits of one of your products or services in a visual way using graphics, it’ll have more impact than using static text. 

Developing a Content Creation Strategy 

Now that you’ve got some content ideas, it’s time to learn how to put a proper strategy together. After all, you can’t just start randomly creating and releasing content. 

Rather, you need to employ a meticulous strategy that entails forming a content creation team, setting clear goals, developing an editorial calendar, and then creating the content. 

You’ll also need to use keyword research tools to help you develop content that your audience wants to consume, like our free keyword planner tool from The HOTH. 

Setting realistic goals 

Your goals form the foundation of your content strategy, which is why you should begin by setting SMART goals. 

That stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound, and it’s the perfect acronym to use to transform a generic goal into an actionable one. 

Here’s a quick example of how to use it:

• Specific: We want to increase organic traffic
• Measurable: We want to see a 25% increase
• Attainable: We have a promising content strategy in place
• Relevant: Increasing our traffic will help build our brand 
• Time-Bound: We want to see the increase within six months

Now you have a highly detailed goal for your strategy, along with a timeframe to make it happen. You shouldn’t stop at just one goal, though, so feel free to use the SMART acronym to form as many goals as you need to grow your business. 

You should think of your goals with every piece of content you create. Before you invest time and resources into developing a blog post or video, ask yourself, “How is this going to get us closer to our goal?”

Form a content creation team

Next, you need to determine who’s going to create your content. Do you have the resources to hire an in-house content creation team, or do you plan on outsourcing the work to freelancers? Either way, figuring out how you plan to create content is crucial before taking the next step. 

If you don’t have the budget for freelancers or in-house content creators, you can choose to use AI to generate content, or you can do it yourself. 

If you need help creating graphics, Canva is an excellent content creation tool for generating graphics and copyright-free stock images. 

Once you’ve assembled your team, you’ll need to create an editorial calendar containing all your content ideas and publishing deadlines. Content planning is equally as important as content creation, so don’t forget to map out your content strategy. 

Project management tools like Asana are excellent for keeping your content creation team on track, as they make it effortless to assign & review tasks from one location. 

Promote your content online 

Once you start publishing content, you’ll want to have a plan in place for promoting it. If you only release blogs on your website, the chances are they won’t gain much traction without any promotional efforts. 

This is where it helps to truly understand your target audience. 

Where do they spend most of their time online?

If they’re always on Reddit or Facebook Groups, make a post promoting your new content. Also, don’t forget to share all the content you create on all your respective social media channels, as well as email it to your contacts/newsletter members. 

Lastly, keep an eye on essential metrics like your organic traffic, click-through rate, dwell time, bounce rate, and average ranking position through tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. If you don’t see the results you want, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. 

Final Thoughts: Content Creation in 2023 & Beyond 

Creating the best content you can is the #1 way to increase online visibility, generate more leads, and convert more prospects. 

Content creation is the ultimate form of inbound marketing, and when done right, your content will continue earning revenue for you well beyond the date you publish it. 

Do you need expert assistance creating a winning content strategy for your business?

Then don’t wait to check out our top-tier content creation services at The HOTH. In addition to producing engaging videos, blogs, and website content – we also offer managed SEO services at HOTH X, so don’t wait to try us out today.

The post Content Creation in 2023 & Beyond: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on The HOTH.

Social media sites are exploding with impressive AI-generated content from programs like ChatGPT and DALL-E. One user even got ChatGPT to write a 30-page children’s eBook that he self-published through Amazon. 

All this buzz has people asking an important and rather scary question – will AI writers make human writers obsolete?

After all, AI writing assistants never get tired or experience writer’s block, meaning they can produce content far faster than humans. Combine that with advanced deep-learning language models like GPT-3, and it’s easy to see why many content writers are concerned. 

Yet, that’s not to say that AI writing tools are perfect, as they still have a long way to go in terms of accuracy, plagiarism, and creativity. 

Even still, short of complete sentience, it’s near-impossible for AI systems & algorithms to comprehend human emotions, which is a major aspect of great writing. That means there’s still a place for human writing, especially when a human touch is necessary. 

In short, there are things that AI writers do best and others that human writers excel at – so you’ll need to know when to use both in your content marketing & copywriting. 

Stay tuned to learn more about the difference between AI and human writers to inform your SEO & content creation strategies. 

Understanding AI Writing 

AI writing involves using machine learning algorithms & language models to automatically generate text like blog posts, poems, essays, creative writing, and more. 

Services like Copymatic allow users to generate AI content, and companies like Forbes have long used AI writing assistants to write their earning reports. Tools like Grammarly have long used AI algorithms for proofreading

Yet, the concept of AI writing really took off in November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public. They released it as open source, so anyone was free to start chatting with it, and its popularity soon exploded – showing up in countless social media posts & mainstream news sites. 

The chatbot can answer user questions, write lines of code, solve problems, and generate essays, blogs, poems, and more. 

While ChatGPT is definitely impressive, it’s not without its issues. Nearly straight away, users began to notice the chatbot making up facts, hallucinating, and producing robotic-sounding nonsense. It’s also exhibited racist & sexist tendencies, likely from inappropriate user interactions. 

Some issues are expected since we’re still in the early stages of the technology, but it still raises some concerns. 

For one, hackers can use programs like ChatGPT to write malware & phishing emails that are nearly impossible to detect. It’s also possible to use the chatbot to produce unethical or inappropriate content, which is a real problem. 

While AI writing is by no means perfect, it can still be incredibly useful to companies and digital marketing agencies, especially when used in tandem with human writers. 

How does AI writing work?

It’s critical to understand how these AI writing tools work if you want to use them properly. While it may seem like magic, there’s a very real process behind what AI text generators do, so let’s take a look. 

AI writing uses a combination of natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning to generate relevant, natural-sounding text. 

Natural language processing allows AI to comprehend, interpret, and write human language. Lots of AI tools use NLP, from proofreading apps like Grammarly to data analytics processors like IBM Watson. 

However, NLP is only half the equation for AI writers like Jasper and ChatGPT. 

Deep learning neural networks comprise the other half, and they attempt to mimic the structure of the human brain to learn from large amounts of data. These neural networks need a large volume of training data to learn by example. 

Deep learning enables AI to replicate various writing styles & dialects so long as they have the appropriate training data. 

AI chatbot ChatGPT was trained on a massive amount of data, roughly 570 GB of data sets that include books, Wikipedia articles, web pages, research articles, and many other sources. In total, approximately 300 billion words went into its database. 

That massive volume of reference data is why the chatbot can answer so many questions and write in so many styles. 

However, ChatGPT’s current iteration only has training for online data up to 2021, meaning it has no knowledge of current events – which is a drawback for now. 

Areas Where AI Needs Some Work 

AI writing tools are still in their infancy, and they certainly have some things that could be improved when it comes to writing original content. 

While AI writers excel at summarizing topics, analyzing data, and presenting numbers and statistics, they need help with creativity and emotion. 

Understanding human emotions

A considerable advantage human writers have over AI tools is the ability to form a personal connection with readers. 

A human writer can engage the audience through relatable stories, personal experiences, and analogies – something AI isn’t capable of yet. Also, AI has no way of distinguishing an emotionally powerful phrase from a mundane one. 

This lack of nuance means the writing AI tools often lack the ‘human touch,’ causing the writing to come across as very stiff and robotic. 

The human touch is crucial because emotional connection and customer purchase rates have a direct correlation. The more connected customers feel to a brand, the more they’re willing to spend. 

Why is that?

It’s because people often make decisions based on impulses, desires, emotions, and morals – all of which have little to do with logic and analytics. 

Human writers can use these emotions and desires in order to market products and services. For example, to market a shirt, a writer might say, “This shirt isn’t just something to wear; it’s your ticket to gaining the confidence you’ve always wanted.” 

That type of emotion-based copywriting appeals to people who want to transform their looks due to a lack of confidence, and it can have a very powerful effect. 

That’s bad news for AI writers, as it’s practically impossible for them to relate to customers on a personal level. 

Providing original insights

Another drawback facing AI writers is a lack of original insights. That’s because an AI writer can’t form its own thoughts on a subject; it can only summarize and reiterate existing content from its database. 

That’s why search engines often flag AI-generated content as plagiarism since it can contain unaltered pieces of the original text. 

If you want to achieve thought leader status in your field, AI writers won’t be enough to make the cut. Instead, you’ll need plenty of original insights and opinions on the most important topics in your industry, which are currently out of AI’s grasp. 

That’s not to say that AI writing tools aren’t helpful, as they’re great for getting the ball rolling for human writers. 

AI vs. Human Writers: A Head-to-Head Comparison

Since you know more about AI writing and how it works, it’s time to pit AI vs. human writers to see which is best. 

That way, you’ll know where to focus the majority of your resources for content creation without sacrificing quality or productivity. 

The Pros and Cons of Human Writers 

First, let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of hiring human writers. A reliable human writer that understands your content needs is extremely valuable and difficult to replace. 

That’s because humans can relate to audiences and appeal to their emotions, morals, and desires. As stated previously, people make decisions based on emotions and impulses more often than strict logic and analysis. 

As such, human writers that understand psychology are often the most powerful. A great content writer commands the reader’s attention, engages them, and then informs them what to do next through a compelling call to action. 

Human writers can help you achieve thought leader status in your niche by influencing how your audience thinks and acts. Through well-written, relatable content produced by humans, you can form loyal brand advocates that will sing your praises to their friends & family. 

That all sounds great, right?

Well, it is when everything goes smoothly and you find a reliable writer. Not all human writers are of equal talent, and it may take a lot of searching until you find a suitable one for your needs. 

Beyond that, human writers can get sick, misinterpret topics, and fall behind deadlines. It also takes a bit of time for humans to research and write on a topic, which can sometimes slow down content creation. 

Human writers are also expensive, as the most talented & in-demand writers will demand higher rates than subpar writers, which is a downside for smaller companies without large content creation budgets. 

Pros 

• Understands emotions and can form personal connections with readers 
• Can produce original insights and form opinions on topics 
• Has an authentic touch that’s difficult to reproduce 
• The storytelling capabilities of humans far exceed those of AI writers

Cons 

• It takes quite a bit of time for humans to research and write articles
• The best writers are expensive
• Writer’s block is a real concern 
• It can be difficult to find a reliable writer that understands your needs
• Humans can get sick and fall behind on their work 

The Pros and Cons of AI Writers

An AI writer never sleeps, never gets sick, and can generate entire articles in seconds or minutes instead of several hours. 

For this reason, AI writing can drastically boost productivity, enabling you to create twice or even three times as much content as you would with human writers. Writer’s block is never an issue for AI tools, either, which is a huge plus. 

AI writing tools can handle everything from brainstorming topics to generating entire articles with minimal input required on your part. Most of the time, all you need is an article title or a few subheadings for an AI writer to generate content. 

AI writers can also generate content on just about any topic, whereas human writers will only have a limited amount of knowledge. As such, it can be easier to use AI writers on highly technical topics that few humans can write about intelligently. 

If you primarily release short-form posts covering data analysis (similar to the Forbes earning reports), then AI writers are the way to go. 

Yet, if you need top-tier marketing content that connects with and relates to audiences, your best bet is to use a human. 

Another advantage of using AI writers is how cost-effective they are to use. Instead of paying a writer each time they create a piece of content, AI writing tools typically involve affordable monthly subscription fees. 

For this reason, many startups and smaller companies like to use AI writers because they’re an inexpensive option for content creation. 

Pros 

• Generates content extremely fast for boosted productivity 
• Never runs out of ideas or gets writer’s block 
• Cost-effective for smaller companies that can’t afford high-quality writers
• Is available to generate content 24/7 
• Can write about any topic 

Cons

• Can’t understand human emotions 
• Has no sense of morals or ethics
• Can’t produce original insights 
• Limited creativity 
• Inaccurate facts 
• Possible plagiarism 

What’s the Best Way to Use AI Writers?

By now, it should be clear there are noticeable pros and cons for both human writers and AI writers. If you want your organization to consistently produce the highest quality content, you should opt for a combination of both. 

For instance, if your best human writer is experiencing writer’s block, having an AI tool write the intro is a great way to remedy the issue. From there, the human writer can fill in the gaps left by the AI (as well as add human touches throughout). 

If you produce a lot of shorter articles summarizing topics and statistics, you shouldn’t have a problem fully automating those – which will boost your productivity. 

However, you should let your human writers tackle marketing content meant to connect to readers on a personal level, only using AI to speed things up here and there (and for things like proofreading). 

By utilizing the powerful one-two punch of AI and human writers, your organization will enjoy the best of both worlds. 

The Verdict: AI vs. Human Writers 

Instead of viewing AI vs. human writers as a competition, it’s best to view it as a collaboration. That’s because it will always depend on your organization’s needs whether you use an AI writer or a human writer. 

Need help with your content creation strategy?

We offer top-tier content creation services at HOTHBlogger, and we provide managed SEO services through HOTH X. Our experts fully understand modern AI tools, so don’t wait to book a consulting call today.     

The post AI vs. Human Writers: What’s the Difference? appeared first on The HOTH.

By that, we don’t mean a generalized version of all your existing customers. 

Instead, we’re talking about a fictionalized buyer persona that has a name, picture, personality, common pain points, and even marital status. 

If that sounds more along the lines of writing a fictional novel than a marketing strategy, you wouldn’t be 100% wrong. Yet, creating an ideal customer avatar is a tried and true marketing effort that produces actual results – which is why companies of all sizes create detailed customer profiles. 

The proof?

93% of companies that were able to exceed lead and revenue goals all had one thing in common – they segmented their databases according to buyer personas. 

Also, Hubspot found that the use of marketing personas made websites 2 – 5 times more effective and easier to use by their target audience. 

These stats reinforce the effectiveness of creating a fictionalized perfect customer avatar for your business. With only a basic marketing persona (created by analyzing demographics only), you’re leaving a lot on the table – which can lead to incorrect assumptions and false categorizations. 

That’s why we’ve put together this guide for fleshing out your ideal customer persona – complete with a customer avatar template you can use. 

Read on to learn how you can create a client avatar for your business or organization. 

What are Customer Avatars Anyway?

First, it’s crucial to clear up the confusion surrounding the terminology, as customer avatars can go by several different names (as you may have discovered in the intro). 

Customer avatars are also called:

• Buyer personas 
• Customer persona 
• Marketing persona 
• Target market 
• Target audience 

All these terms can refer to customer avatars, but they can also refer to more general marketing personas, hence the confusion. 

However, here is the true definition of a customer avatar:

A customer avatar is a detailed profile of your perfect potential customer. It focuses on a single, fictional person instead of categorizing people into generalized groups. As a result, no assumptions are made about the person, and the avatar outlines every detail about them, which provides marketers with a myriad of targeting tools. 

So if you see the term ‘buyer persona‘ referring to a specific person representing a potential customer, that’s a customer avatar. Yet, if the buyer persona is used to represent general demographics, it’s not a true customer avatar. 

Also, many businesses and organizations utilize more than one customer avatar, so it’s crucial not to limit yourself to just one if you market to a broad audience. 

A customer avatar is a great way to avoid trying to market your products and services to everyone, which is always a mistake. With an avatar, you’ll get to know your typical audience member on a personal level, which is highly valuable for your marketing campaigns. 

Does Your Company Need a Customer Avatar?

Some business owners will question if they need to create a customer avatar or not. After all, if you’re already studying your target audience‘s demographics and buying habits, what’s the point?

Let’s put this issue to bed right now – every organization (even nonprofits) can benefit significantly from creating customer avatars. 

Why is that?

It’s because having a detailed understanding of your typical customer is ALWAYS a good thing, no matter your industry. If you understand your audience on a deeply personal level, it will benefit every aspect of your operation. 

It’ll also help you avoid wasting time and valuable resources on losing endeavors. For instance, if you don’t know what your customers truly want, you’ll have a hard time creating content and developing new products. 

Creating customer avatars is even more crucial for startups and small businesses, as they will help you make the most out of your budget. Doing the research involved with creating an avatar will also inform you how much you need to segment your market (i.e., how many customer avatars you need to create). 

Building a customer avatar isn’t a one-off task, either. 

Companies that find the most success with their avatars understand that a customer’s wants, desires, problems, and hangouts all change over time – hence the need to update your avatars periodically. 

Even churches and charitable organizations benefit from creating avatars, which is why they build donor avatars. 

It shows that developing an intimate understanding of a target market is always a good idea, no matter the industry or type of business. 

What are negative customer avatars?

Besides avatars that represent ideal potential customers, some companies also opt to create negative customer avatars. 

What are those?

A negative customer avatar represents the type of customer that you DON’T want. Believe it or not, this is also a beneficial practice that any company or business can employ. 

To start developing a negative customer avatar, think of all the nightmare customers you’ve dealt with in the past and make a list of their traits. 

What were they most disappointed with by your products or services? What traits did they have in common? (i.e., argumentative, difficult to please, trying to take advantage of the system, etc.)

Not only will this help you discover which types of consumers to avoid with your business strategy, but it can also help you identify areas in your business that you can improve. 

For instance, you may uncover that you need to improve your customer service by analyzing negative customer experiences with your brand. 

An additional benefit is that negative customer avatars can help you avoid spending time and resources on a market segment that has no interest in your products or services. Without taking the time to analyze your audience in this way, you might continue to waste money targeting the wrong customers. 

Certain types of customers won’t be a good fit for your products or services for reasons besides personal ones, too. 

It could be that a prospect is too technically advanced for what you sell or that certain prospects only use your content to conduct their own research. 

The Benefits of Using Customer Avatars 

If you’re still on the fence about developing customer avatars for your digital marketing strategy, it might be because you’ve yet to see what it will provide for you. 

After all, creating customer avatars will take effort from your staff, which can be quite an investment if your employees are notoriously pressed for time. 

The good news is all that market research won’t be for naught. 

Instead, the little amount of money you spend developing customer avatars pales in comparison to what you stand to gain from incorporating them. 

Still don’t believe us?

Then check out these numerous benefits your organization will see from defining customer avatars. 

Identify your target audience 

No business will get very far without a specific target audience in mind, as few products and services are universal. 

If your idea is to market your business to absolutely everyone, you’ll likely wind up wasting all your money with little to show for it, which is never a desirable outcome. 

While it’s commonplace for companies to study demographic information and customer buying habits to learn more about their audience, creating a customer avatar takes this research to the next level. 

You’ll be able to truly get inside the mind of one of your customers, which will help you develop the perfect messaging for them. That’s the best way to relate to an audience, build a following, and boost your conversion rates. 

With a detailed customer avatar, you avoid speaking to the wrong people in your ads and content, which will help you squeeze the most out of every penny of your budget. Even with a well-defined niche to focus on, you’re likely still wasting money by not having a customer avatar to go along with it. 

Avatars will help you penetrate further into your niche so you can solve your audience’s pain points, answer their questions, and speak their language to win them over. 

According to ITSMA, buyers are 48% more likely to go with solution providers if they personalize their marketing to address their personal issues, and developing a customer avatar is the best way to do so. 

Avoid potential business risks 

A customer avatar helps you keep your eye on the goal when crafting ads, articles, and blogs for your company. 

Without one, your content likely won’t scratch your potential customers‘ itch. Instead, you may end up focusing on the needs of prospects that aren’t the best fit for your company but only seem like it at the time. 

What do we mean by that?

Let’s consider an example. Say that you sell parts for classic cars online but don’t have a customer avatar. A few well-meaning customers asked if you could provide more modern parts instead. Eager for the business, you accommodate them and start carrying modern parts, which in turn alienates your true fans (classic car enthusiasts) – causing a steep drop-off in revenue. 

Having a detailed and well-defined customer avatar for your business would have helped you avoid this issue entirely. 

Perfect your messaging for email marketing 

With a customer avatar, it becomes far easier to write emails directly to your target audience. You’ll know what type of language to use, which will make it feel as if they’re reading an email from a friend. 

In addition, you’ll have an intimate understanding of their primary problems and questions, which will make your emails far more effective. 

Writing convincing calls-to-action (CTAs) will also become easier to boost your conversion rates. 

Last but not least, your customer avatars will let you know if you need to segment your email marketing campaigns. For instance, if you have three customer avatars, you should create an email marketing campaign for each one. 

They make product development easier 

Since you’ll know your customers on a near-personal level, knowing which new products and services they’ll go for will become far easier. 

Once again, this will help save your company a ton of money. 

If you build a new product that doesn’t interest your audience or solve one of their problems, don’t expect it to sell very well. That’s why it’s so imperative to use customer avatars to inform product development decisions. 

Defining a Customer Avatar for Your Business 

Now that you know why customer avatars are so crucial, it’s time to learn how to create one for your organization. 

Building a customer avatar will take a lot of time and effort, and you shouldn’t base anything on guesses. 

Instead, you’ll need to base everything on accurate data and in-depth market research. 

The good news?

This guide contains everything you need in order to build a customer avatar from scratch, so let’s get started. 

Step #1: Pick a name and choose a picture 

The first step is to give your customer avatar a name, but it shouldn’t be any old name (i.e., Jim is too vague). 

Rather, the name should include some specific information about who they are. An example will be naming your avatar CEO Jim if your products target business executives. 

It’s imperative to think about who your potential customers are during this step to come up with the best name possible. Say your niche is health and wellness, and you’re targeting fitness enthusiasts. In this case, you could name your avatar something like Fitness Fred. 

If your audience is segmented into a few groups, you’ll need to come up with avatars for each one, which means coming up with more names. 

You should also choose a photo, as it helps to visualize what your avatar looks like. For this, try to imagine one of your most loyal customers. Someone who regularly buys your products and doesn’t hesitate to leave glowing reviews. 

What do they look like?

You can even go so far as to use their social media profile picture as your avatar photo. While it may seem tempting to skip this step, putting a face to the name will help you humanize your avatar. That comes in handy whenever you sit down to create content, as you can picture that you’re writing directly to your avatar. 

Step #2: Define their demographics and psychographics 

Next, you need to analyze your existing customers, paying close attention to their demographics and psychographics. 

Demographics will help you identify who your customers are, and psychographics will help you uncover why they buy your products. 

For your demographic information, analyze your customers based on the following:

• Age 
• Gender 
• Income
• Marital status 
• Kids 
• Habits 
• Hobbies
• Job-status 
• Religion 
• Race 

Psychographics include what your audience believes, enjoys, and values. While demographic information tends to be readily available, psychographic information is a bit more tricky to uncover. 

Ways to uncover psychographic data include:

• Create polls on Facebook and Instagram asking your audience what they enjoy and value. 
• Conduct former client/customer interviews to get a glimpse into how they think. 
• Start a focus group or gather data from an existing one. 
• Investigate your website analytics to uncover customer preferences and buying habits. 

These are all ways you can generate a psychographic database if you don’t have one already. 

Step #3: Identify their primary goals 

Next, what does your avatar hope to achieve in life? What is their ultimate goal, and how can your products and services bring them closer to that?

For instance, if your audience consists of entrepreneurs, their goals are likely to be something along the lines of:

• Earning enough revenue to quit their day job 
• Finding independence and freedom 
• Setting their own work hours 
• Discovering ways to earn passive income 

Just like that, you have a series of goals that can influence your content, products, and services. 

Step #4: Uncover your avatar’s backstory 

Where did your customer avatar come from? Did they spend a lot of time working jobs they hated before finding their calling? Do they come from cities or small towns?

These are helpful questions to ask yourself, as they’ll help you further understand your customer avatar and the decisions they’re likely to make. 

Understanding their background will also help you gain insight into your avatar’s mindset and what you can do to satisfy their needs. 

Step #5: Fill out a customer avatar template 

Last but not least, here’s a free worksheet you can fill out to define your customer avatar:

Demographics

• Age: 
• Gender: 
• Marital status:
• Children:
• Income: 
• Location:
• Occupation:
• Level of education:
• Religion:
• Race:

Primary goals 

• What do they value above all else?
• What are their primary beliefs in life?
• What is their primary goal, and what do they hope to accomplish?

Information sourcing

• How do they stay informed?
• Which websites do they frequent?
• What are their preferred social media platforms?

Difficulties and challenges 

• What challenges do they face?
• What are their primary pain points?
• What questions will they likely ask?

Purchasing 

• What possible objections might they have to your products or services?
• What is their monthly budget?
• Are they the direct buyer, or will they go through somebody else?

Once this template is complete, you’ll have a fully-defined customer avatar or avatars ready for immediate use. 

Final Takeaways: Defining Your Customer Avatar 

That’s what it takes to define a customer avatar that’s detailed enough to provide excellent results. By creating a customer avatar, you’ll gain invaluable insights into your target audience that you wouldn’t have found otherwise. 

That’s why creating avatars is a revered marketing technique practiced by organizations of all types and sizes. 

If your business has hit a snag, defining a customer avatar may be just what you need to snap out of it. 

Do you need help formulating a marketing campaign for your business?

If so, don’t wait to reach out to us at HOTH X, our fully managed SEO services. Our experts will handle every aspect of your digital marketing strategy, including defining your unique customer avatar, so don’t wait to book a call today.   

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No matter what it is you write, you want to ensure you’re conveying your thoughts in a way that’s concise, engaging, and completely free of fluff. 

There are also many different writing styles, including academic writing, creative writing, copywriting, blogging, and many more – each with its own set of rules and standards. As such, writing can seem like an intimidating endeavor if you don’t have much experience. 

Yet, anyone can learn to become a better writer if they employ the right techniques and are consistent with practice. 

So if you’ve been assigned some business writing tasks at your job, fear not, as it’s entirely possible to learn how to write better, even if it’s your first time. 

According to ZipRecruiter, writing is also a lucrative career for many, with the average freelance writer’s salary standing at $63,213. Technical writers can earn even more, with average salaries of $80,000 and above – so mastering the art of writing can become quite profitable. 

That’s why we’ve put together this extensive guide on how to write better for beginners, intermediates, and advanced writers. No matter what your experience level is, great writers realize there’s always room for improvement. 

Read on to discover candid writing tips that will take your skills to the next level. 

Writing Tips for Total Beginners 

For new writers, the first step is to get a solid grasp of the basics. As such, these first few rounds of tips are for newer writers who have yet to produce so much as a short story. 

If writing has long been your kryptonite, it’s time to face your fears. You’ll soon find that by learning the basics, you’ll have a much stronger foundation to work from than you did before, which will supercharge your progress. 

That way, you can start tackling simple blogs, non-fiction essays, and short stories in no time. 

#1: Believe in yourself 

There’s a stigma surrounding writing that you either have it or you don’t. In other words, writing is an inherent talent that some people have, and others do not, and there’s no way to learn how to improve. 

Of course, this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Yet, this stigma is especially damaging to aspiring writers who don’t strike immediate success with their first blog or short story. They feel as if they just don’t have it, so they give up. 

That’s a shame because next to nobody starts out as a great writer from birth. While some people have a healthy amount of natural talent, it still takes quite a bit of practice and nurturing to become a truly effective writer. 

Don’t believe us?

Do some research on your favorite writer, and you’ll likely discover that they struggled to get published in the beginning. In fact, J.K. Rowling’s initial idea for Harry Potter was rejected 12 times by various publishers. 

However, she was not discouraged by these rejections, and her books would go on to sell more than 450 million copies worldwide. 

Stephen King‘s Carrie, a legendary horror book that was later adapted into a movie classic, was rejected a whopping 30 times before it got picked up. 

The moral of the story? Always believe in yourself as a writer. 

#2: Read instead of watching Netflix 

To really improve your writing skills, you need to become an avid reader. Besides being a bookworm, any reading will help you improve. That means magazines, blogs, brochures, and even things like comic books and manga will help. 

What’s most imperative here is that you not only read what you enjoy but what you intend to write as well. 

So if you plan to write horror novels, read as many as you can to get a feel for them. The same is true for blogs, essays, and sales copy – so don’t be shy about reading your competitor’s work online. 

Without even knowing it, reading will help you pick up on things like:

• Sentence structure 
• Word choice 
• Passive and active voice 
• Proofreading 
• Clichés 

These factors will all lead to better writing on your part, so the next time you’re about to binge a Netflix series, pick up a book instead. 

If you don’t have a lot of time to read during the day, try bringing a book with you on the bus, or listening to audiobooks during your drive to work. 

#3: Start a consistent practice routine 

We’ve all heard the adage that practice makes perfect, but without consistency, perfection will always elude you. 

Building effective writing skills is similar to developing muscles while working out. If you only go to the gym once a month, you won’t see any progress. Instead, you need to exercise your muscles consistently each week to see actual results. 

Writing is the same way. If you only write once a month, don’t expect to see much in the way of improvement. 

Yet, if you set aside 1-hour a day to knock out a piece of writing, you’ll start seeing real progress in not much time at all. After a few weeks, you’ll be on your way to producing your first piece of excellent writing. 

Previously, we mentioned that Stephen King has a rigorous writing routine that he sticks to – which is why he’s the most successful novelist of all time. However, you probably won’t need to go as hard as King does, as he reads and writes for at least 4 – 6 hours a day (wow!). 

#4: Learn how to uncover your inspiration 

Many new writers struggle with finding inspiration, leading them to procrastinate. After all, how are you supposed to sit down and write for hours if you aren’t inspired?

Well, the good news is that you can learn ways to discover inspiration all around you. 

Inspiration is truly everywhere if you know how to look for it, from random conversations at the bus stop to a news story on TV. Instead of blindly going through your day’s motions, stop and look around. 

In particular, pay attention to the people around you every day. Is a friend of yours in a particularly humorous situation? Why not use it in a script or novel?

Famous comedy writer Larry David is renowned for this, as many humorous scenarios and conversations from the popular sitcom Seinfeld originated from his personal life. 

According to an interview he did with Forbes, he would carry a pen and paper wherever he went and found inspiration from “dinner parties where there’s a lot of social interactions, regrets, and faux pas. When people get together like that, it’s fraught with tension.“

David’s method is great for turning on your ‘inspirational awareness.’ Suddenly, everything that takes place in your life can serve as a form of inspiration. Something as simple as your commute to work can generate a ton of writing ideas. 

If you’re writing blog content for SEO, conducting keyword research is the most reliable way to find inspiration (as it will clue you in on what your audience is searching for the most). 

#5: Write about what you know 

Are you having a hard time deciding what you’ll write about?

If so, take a minute to think about your life experiences. What are your primary interests in life? What do you have the most experience with? Are you an expert cook with years of experience? Then blogging about the culinary arts is a perfect fit. 

It’s always best to stick to writing about what you know. 

That doesn’t mean that you have to only write about your boring day job, though. Writing about what you know can be as simple as writing about a feeling you know all too well. 

Have you ever gone through a rough patch in your life where you had to reinvent yourself to come out of it? Or have you ever used your career skills to overcome a massive challenge in your life?

These are all great topics to write about because they relate directly to your life experiences. As such, you’ll have more passion in writing about them for the simple fact that you’ve been through it. 

This rule is also meant to be broken, as it’s often impossible to ONLY write about things you know. Yet, when researching new topics, you’ll probably find a way to relate to them in some way through a similar experience. 

For instance, if you have to write about graphic designers but have no experience as one, perhaps you can relate to their passion for their craft as you do for another hobby, such as writing. 

#6: Rewrites and edits are inevitable (and a good thing) 

Many new writers assume that their first draft is perfect and ready to be published in its current state. 

However, that’s not the way the writing process works, even for simple online blogs. 

Instead, the writing process involves drafting, redrafting, and polishing a piece of writing until it’s as perfect as humanly possible. 

The first draft is more of a jumping-off point than a finalized piece. As such, you should never submit your first draft as a complete piece. Rather, the first step after writing the first draft is to read the entire thing out loud to yourself. 

Why is that?

It’s because when you’re focused on writing a draft, it can be incredibly difficult to consider the bigger picture of the piece as a whole. As a result, first drafts often have a lot of repetition, proofreading mistakes, and an awkward flow. 

When reading the draft aloud, take note of how well the writing flows. 

Almost immediately, you’ll probably notice ways to shorten sentences, simplify phrasing, and correct any errors. 

You should also be on the lookout for unnecessary words that contribute nothing to the overall message. 

If you’re writing a blog for the internet, a professional editor will likely take a look at your work for further refinement. It’s completely normal to go through a few drafts before a piece is ready, so don’t let that discourage you. 

#7: Create the perfect writing atmosphere for yourself 

Every great writer needs a dedicated space to practice their craft. That means designating a writing space somewhere in your home or office. 

Ideally, you want to write in a quiet space that’s completely free of any distractions. In other words, trying to write at the kitchen table while your spouse blares the TV and your kids play in the corner isn’t the best idea. 

Try to find an isolated area where you can write in peace. 

Even if you have a quiet office with a computer you can use for writing, temptations can still seep through. For instance, the temptation to waste time on social media and YouTube may prove to be too great at times, causing you to procrastinate and tank your productivity. 

That’s why many authors find it beneficial to disconnect the internet when they write (or use a dedicated writing laptop that has no internet or apps). That will ensure you have no way to give in to the temptation to waste time, as you’ll have no way how. 

Can you not stand to write in total silence?

If so, don’t torture yourself. Writing while listening to gentle music in the background can be highly beneficial for some.

Be wary of listening to ‘busier’ music genres that involve lots of singing and lyrics (such as pop hits), as they can cause your brain to ‘ping-pong’ its attention between the music and your writing, which can slow you down. 

Writing Tips for Intermediates 

Have you been writing for a year or two now? If so, you’ve probably got a pretty solid grasp on the basics. 

You know how to come up with topics and write a complete piece. Yet, you may still struggle with some grammatical issues, certain writing styles, and other intermediate issues. 

Here are some writing tips that’ll help you hone your skills to the point of becoming an advanced writer. 

#1: Know your reader base (target audience) 

You always want to consider who you’re writing to, and this applies to bloggers, authors, copywriters, and even those who only type business emails. 

It’s marketing 101 to know your customer, and writing is the exact same, but with readers. 

Knowing your audience will influence the type of language you use, your tone, and even the topics you choose. 

That’s especially true if you’re writing content to market products and services to a certain niche. 

For instance, if you’re writing sneaker blogs for a hip crowd – taking a more casual, informal tone (and even using slang) is the way to go. That will ensure that your audience relates to your copy, making them more likely to engage with it. 

Conversely, if you’re writing case studies to sell business professionals the value of your project management software, a more formal, professional tone will yield more success than staying informal. 

Even if you write fiction, you still need to consider the needs of your fanbase when constructing your stories. If your writing resonates with your fans deeply, it’s crucial to uncover why that is, so you can continue to deliver. 

#2: Shorten your sentences 

While this tip is primarily for bloggers and copywriters, long sentences in novels can also become quite cumbersome. 

On average, a sentence should contain no more than 30 words, with 15 words being the ideal length. 

That’s because longer sentences are much harder to read and can muddy the message. A series of short, concise sentences will always be easier to read than one long one. 

Want proof?

Check this out; which do you think is easier to read?

1. A good writer always knows how to hook the reader in while holding their attention, all while building a sense of suspense before the ultimate, satisfying payoff that ties all the loose ends together. 
2. A good writer knows how to hook you and hold your attention. They then build suspense before delivering a satisfying payoff that ties everything together. 

Both sentences convey the same message, but the second one is more concise and easier to read. The first sentence not only goes on too long, but it contains a lot of unnecessary words. 

A great tool for learning how to write shorter sentences is the Hemingway Editor. Named after famed writer Ernest Hemingway, a sentence will turn yellow or red if it starts to go on for too long. After using the editor for a while, you’ll start to write shorter sentences by default. 

#3: Learn to use CTAs (calls to action) 

If your writing has a goal (newsletter sign-ups, product sales, lead generation), you need to master the call to action (CTA). 

While your content may have a few different purposes (educating customers and building brand awareness), a CTA doesn’t beat around the bush regarding what you want from your readers. 

If you want to increase sales for a particular product, your CTA could look something like this:

• If you’re ready to kiss (general problem) goodbye forever, don’t wait to try out our (product name and link) today. 

It’s quick and to the point, but it encourages the reader to take the desired action you want in no-nonsense plain English. 

Here’s a quick tip to remember – only ever include ONE call to action in each piece of writing, as more than one is overkill and will only serve to complicate things. 

Writing Tips for Advanced Writers 

Even if you’ve been writing professionally for years, there’s always room for improvement. 

Writing is something you can do your entire life and still learn new things about, so there’s no shortage of ways to refine your skills. 

#1: Vary your word choice 

It’s normal for writers to rely on their ‘favorite’ words and terms – i.e., the ones that they use the most often. 

It’s the literary equivalent of a comfort zone. 

Yet, repeating the same words and phrases is a surefire way to make your writing grow stale, especially if you write to the same readers. 

The remedy?

Make a conscious effort to mix up your word choices. First, start by making a list of the words and phrases you tend to repeat the most, and come up with two or three alternatives for each one. After that, start peppering in the new words and phrases into your writing. 

To be honest, you should do this every couple of months to ensure that your writing stays fresh, engaging, and unpredictable (your readers shouldn’t be able to complete your sentences for you). 

Also, use the thesaurus heavily, as it’s an excellent way to learn new words consistently. 

#2: Use bucket brigades

For online content, you’ve got to hook the reader as soon as you can and in as many ways as possible. 

Why is that?

It has to do with the average internet user’s faltering (and ever-decreasing) attention span. The average website visit lasts a whopping 15 seconds, so you need to do what you can to improve retention. 

Bucket brigades are a great way to hook readers in and engage them with your writing. They’re simple phrases that encourage the reader to learn more. Examples include (there are plenty in this blog, too):

• Now:
• Best of all:
• Here’s why:
• Why is that:
• What does that mean for you:

You can also develop your own bucket brigades, so feel free to experiment. 

#3: Analyze instead of summarizing 

Many writers fall into the habit of summarizing research articles they read online and doing little else. 

That quickly leads to stale writing that provides no new insights on a particular topic. That’s why advanced writers learn how to analyze something instead of summarizing it. 

Analyzing means you’re actually learning something and paying attention to how it works. Analysis can also involve conducting your own experiments and research. That way, the writing you come up with will be wholly original, and you’ll be able to provide unique insights that readers won’t find anywhere else. 

Final Thoughts: How to Write Better 

Writing well takes time, so don’t get discouraged if you aren’t on Stephen King‘s level by your third week. 

Instead, hunker down and commit to a consistent writing schedule. By following the tips in this guide, you’ll start improving your writing skills in no time. Whether you plan on writing novels or business emails, staunch writing skills are a plus in every scenario. 

Are you interested in more tips?

Don’t hesitate to check out our free SEO resources.   

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Not only that but every month, 70 million+ blog articles are posted on WordPress websites, generating nearly 80 million blog comments. 

Most bloggers start their blogs to monetize their expertise and knowledge and create an extra income stream. 

The remaining content is a beginner’s guide to the most popular blogging topics.

If owning a successful blog is your goal, keep reading to learn how to improve your chances.

The Most Popular and Most Profitable Topics to Blog About

Most bloggers blog about what they know. 

However, starting a great blog isn’t as easy as simply writing about something you’re an expert on.

One of the keys to preparing a blog is ensuring you have sufficient topics and ideas to blog about. 

One way to do this is to write at least 100 blog topics and ideas before beginning. 

If you were to write two blogs a week, 100 topics would give you nearly 2-year’s worth of blog ideas.

Additionally, when starting out, you may want to consider the concept of guest blogging. 

This involves contacting other blogging influencers and posting guest blogs on their website.

This can help gain you traffic and exposure to a new audience. 

How to Pick a Blog Niche

Another essential task before starting a blog is to pick a subject to blog about. 

If the blog is for your business, the most likely niche would be something about that business.

However, if it’s not about your business, there are many other methods to blog. 

Below are several different methods for choosing what to blog about.

• Pick a blog niche you’re passionate about
• Understand how often you should blog
• Look for a niche with low competition but will gain more interest from your target audience
• Choose a niche in which you have some expertise, especially if you’re blogging about healthcare, finances, engineering, etc.
• Will your topic stay relevant over time? 
• Choose a blog niche where advertisers will want to place ads

Here are some different topics and types of blogs you can choose from:

Food & Drink Blogs

Food in all its glory is an insanely popular blog topic with a huge variety of subtopics and niches. 

That means there are a lot of people out there trying to do the same thing as you. Don’t fall into the category of blog niche saturation.

However, if done right, blogging about food can be very profitable.  

Food critic bloggers, for example, go from restaurant to restaurant, sampling their dishes and passing judgment on their cuisine, service, ambiance, and prices. 

Infatuation is one of the best, but there are thousands more.

However, food blogs on different blogging platforms with recipes, instructions, and cooking lessons are more popular than food critic blogs. 

The subtopics are just as varied, from preparing certain foods to finding the right ingredients, cooking tools and utensils that are best for preparing food, and step-by-step instructions.

One of the biggest subtopics in the food blog niche is wine, beer, and spirits blogs that search far and wide to find the best adult beverages. 

Craft beer bloggers are very popular, especially with craft breweries opening nationwide. (Beervana out of Portland is a standout.) 

Wine blogs are no different, plus whisky, gin, scotch, and, well, name the spirit, and it’s likely got its new blog. 

The Top 5 food and drink blogs include:

1. Food52– One of the premier food blogs online today.

2.  Serious Eats– A leading resource for all things delicious.

3. Deliciously Ella– A simple blog turned into a successful business!

4. A Pinch of Yum– Delish recipes are the heart of this top food blog.

5. Balanced Bites- A virtual nutritionist with tips on eating whole and healthy.

Fashion Blogs

The fashion industry is massive and provides an equally massive number of niches to blog about. 

Blogging about fashion and beauty has made some top fashion bloggers wealthy, although you must note that the topic is highly competitive. 

Fashion blogging can also be time-consuming and require extensive travel and expense outlay. Plus, getting recognition usually takes several years and Herculean effort. 

As with many of today’s blog topics, fashion and beauty have a wide range of subtopics. 

You’ll find it all in one fashion blog or another, from the newest style trends to luxury, bespoke garments, textiles, footwear, fashion shows, and even how to sew fashionable clothing for yourself.

Some of the perks of being a fashion blogger are pretty sweet. 

Free clothing is one of the best, often given to fashion bloggers in exchange for promoting a certain brand or model on their blog. 

Some top fashion bloggers get invited to the swankiest fashion shows in cities like Milan and New York. 

Even lesser-known fashion bloggers can do well as the topic is so big and in demand. 

With literally thousands of sub-topics to choose from, fashion blogging is one of the most popular blog topics on the internet today. 

The Top 5 fashion blogs include:

1. The Zoe Report– All you need to know about fashion.
2. Elle– One of the top fashion blogs by a top fashion mag.
3. Yes Style– Focusing on style in Asia.
4. Popsugar Fashion– All the styles and fashions being worn by celebs.
5. Who What Wear– Celebrity style with a blog name to die for.

Travel Blogs

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t like to travel or constantly dreams of their next travel adventure. 

One of the most popular searches on the internet is for travel, as millions hunt for information, advice, and reviews to plan their next vacation or trip. 

Review blogs are some of the most popular in the travel niche, including reviews of resorts, hotels, vacation spots, tour packages, etc.  

The subtopics for travel blog ideas are seemingly infinite. 

Some focus on a specific city or country and give you everything you could want to know about the people, culture, and attractions. 

Other travel blogs concentrate on getting great discounts for their followers on travel arrangements, including flights, accommodations, rental cars, and tour packages. 

There are travel blogs for hikers, bikers, mountain climbers, and wine enthusiasts, all geared towards letting readers know the best and most beautiful places to enjoy their specific sport, hobby, or interest.

Perks can be fantastic for top travel bloggers, including free hotel stays, travel to specific locations and experiences, and discounts on various travel-related products. 

One drawback is that you have to travel a lot if you want to write about traveling, which can be stressful. 

Five of the top travel blogs include:

1. Dan Flying Solo– A very well-done travel blog by a Lonely Planet Ambassador
2. Y Travel Blog– A blog based on traveling with family
3. The Planet D- Comprehensive travel guides, tips, and itineraries from a fun-loving couple
4. The Blonde Abroad– Tips and info on how to travel solo plus inspirational writing
5. The Points Guy– The best blog for travel discounts, airline points, and travel credit cards

Photography Blogs

Blogging has been a huge boon for photographers around the world, allowing them to show off their work to millions (and get paid for it). 

Many people love seeing gorgeous photographs and hearing stories about how, where, and when the photographer took them.

For many photographers, blogging about photography can be a dream job that allows them to turn their hobby into a full-blown career. 

Photography blogging is also an excellent method for a photographer to advertise their skills and get hired by new customers.

For example, it makes perfect sense to have a wedding photography blog if you’re a wedding photographer. 

It gives potential clients a clear picture (if you’ll pardon the pun) of what you can do for them during their own wedding. 

Many photography bloggers write about how they take their pictures and give their followers tips, advice, and information about becoming better photographers. 

Subtopics in the photography blogging space include nature, fashion, portrait, equipment, and photo-editing program reviews. 

There are even blogs dedicated to photographers who photograph food.  

The Top 5 photography blogs include:

1. Behind the Shutter– An huge catalog of photography tutorials.
2. Creative Boom– Career tips and photography Gear reviews.
3. Strobist–  A blog geared towards lighting your photographs perfectly.
4. The Phoblographer– Photography with a psychological twist.
5. We Eat Together– The authoritative blog on food photography. 

Parenting Blogs

The number of parenting blogs has skyrocketed in the last few years, especially with the recent pandemic sending millions of children home from school to study virtually. 

Even before then, however, the parenting blog niche was quite popular. One reason is likely that parenting is one of life’s most stressful (but rewarding) jobs. 

Parents are always looking for parenting tips and hacks that will make it more of a reward and less stress.

Parenting blogs aren’t just for moms, either. 

Thousands of dad bloggers give their input and advice and put their parenting experiences down on virtual paper. 

One of the most popular subtopics in the parenting blog niche is being a single dad (or mom) and raising kids single-handedly. 

There are even blogs about being an older parent and dealing with the trials and tribulations of parenthood while also getting older.

Some parenting blog ideas focus on reviewing baby and child products, including clothing, toys, and sports equipment. 

Baby food and foods specifically for kids are also a big topic, plus how to discipline kids in today’s modern world. 

Some of the top parenting bloggers have masses of devoted fans who reward their advice, tips, and insights with a generous affiliate income stream. 

Below are the top 5 parenting blogs, including:

1. Scary Mommy– Extremely popular blog with provocative and insightful opinion pieces.
2. Support for Stepdads–  A blog to help stepdads cope. 
3. Parenting today from the Child Development Institute– Top parenting blog from the experts. 
4. BabyCenter– Everything a woman needs to know about being pregnant.

Health and Fitness Blogs

In today’s health-obsessed world, it’s no wonder health and fitness bloggers are incredibly popular. 

From how to get in shape to eating well, fasting, exercise equipment reviews, and many more, health and fitness blogs span many topics and subtopics. 

Certified personal trainers, dietitians, fitness experts, and more have gotten involved in health and fitness blogging.

One drawback when blogging about health and fitness that we should mention is that legally speaking, it’s a topic that could land you in hot water. 

If you’re not a medical professional, it’s essential that you let your followers know this and advise them to seek medical help if needed. 

Some health and fitness blogs have been shut down for providing medical information without the proper licensing.

Still, whether a medical professional or not, blogging about health and fitness is an excellent way to build a following, monetize your expertise and create an extra income stream. 

The range of subtopics is vast, and the demand for quality information, tips, and hacks on staying healthy and fit are massive. 

They include physical and mental health, dieting, healthy snacks, and even what to wear when exercising. 

The Top 5 health and fitness blog ideas include:

1. Mark’s Daily Apple–  Amazing content from a lifetime fitness expert.
2. Carrots ‘n’ Cake- Focuses on women who want to become fit and healthy.
3. Breaking Muscle -One of the best blogs for serious bodybuilders. 
4.  Advanced Human Performance -An award-winning fitness in personal training blog.
5. Blogilates– A huge variety of fitness and health content, including recipes, workouts, diet plans, etc.

Woodworking Blogs

There are few DIY blog topics more popular than woodworking. 

Creating something with wood, for many people, is extremely satisfying and woodworking bloggers know this. 

Some of the best are world-class carpenters who share their advice and tips on how to get the best results from a raw piece of wood. 

Most woodworking blogs include how-to articles, resources for procuring different types of wood, tool reviews, and the latest woodworking tips and tricks. 

The beauty of wood is that you can use it to create so many different things. 

Wood is used in almost every facet of human life from your typical table and chairs to magnificent sculptures, beautiful frames for artwork, or the entire frame for a house.

Subtopics in the woodworking blog space are as varied and unique as the different species of wood you can use to create. 

Some blogs concentrate on home construction and remodeling, while others go deep into the details of creating wooden toys. 

Cabinet making is a very popular woodworking blog niche, as are wood sculpting, how to lay a solid wood floor, and blogs for refurbishing and refinishing antique wooden furniture. 

Five of the top woodworking blogs are below, including one from celebrity Nick Offerman:

1. Offerman Woodshop– What more can you say about a top woodworking blog by the star of “Parks and Recreation”?!
2. The House of Wood– A female Centric DIY wood blogger that includes furniture building, home renovation, and more.
3. The Rogue Engineer– Step-by-step plans for all the furniture your home could need.
4. The Handmade Home–  a wide variety of inspirational ideas and projects for your home.
5. Jays Custom Creations– Plans for some cool creations and projects.

Crafting and DIY Blogs

One look at Etsy, the DIY craft marketplace, proves that crafting is incredibly popular. 

Almost anything highly popular also makes an excellent blog topic, and thus there are thousands of crafting and DIY blogs.

One caveat about starting a crafting and DIY blog is that creating videos to go with your blog articles is essential.  

That’s because many crafts require many different steps to complete. 

Many people are visual learners and will have a better experience if they see something being explained on video rather than reading it in a blog. 

Indeed, many of the best craft and DIY bloggers are also popular YouTubers. 

Crafting may be one of the biggest blogging topics available simply because there are so many different DIY crafts. 

From selling your clothes to making toys, crocheting, knitting, and creating decorations and cards, the list goes on and on. 

One DIY blog niche involves activity blogs for kids that are extremely popular and blogs many parents flock to. The Top 5 crafting and DIY blogs include:

1. A Beautiful Mess– All sorts of wonderful DIY and crafting content brought to you by two talented sisters.
2. Paper and Stitch-. Started by an art teacher ten years ago and is now her main business!
3. Lovely Indeed– This blog has grown to include crafts and home decor. It started as a showcase for wedding projects.
4. Almost Makes Perfect– Crafting elevated to a higher art form.
5.  Aunt Peaches– Simple, inexpensive projects and kids’ crafts.

Personal Finance Blogs

When you consider that personal finance is something most people are never taught, it’s no surprise personal finance blogs are so popular. 

Millions of folks don’t even know the basics of finance, including how to create a budget, take out a loan, or start a retirement fund for themselves. 

Personal finance bloggers fill this massive gap, giving their followers sound financial advice and tips on making better financial decisions. 

There are finance blogs to create wealth, manage money, create multiple income streams, and start a business. 

Some of the top personal finance blogs are followed by hundreds of thousands of people who willingly exchange their time for advice that saves them money.

One of the bigger personal finance subtopics is retirement planning, which grows larger daily as the population ages.  

Blogs ideas on how to invest in the stock market are also popular, as well as blogs on investing in different foreign markets. 

One of the most popular finance blogs of all is Get Rich Slowly. 

It’s also one of the original finance blogs that started in 2006. 

Five of the top personal finance blogs include:

1. Smart Passive Income– Articles on entrepreneurship, passive income streams, and side hustles, among others.
2. I Will Teach You to Be Rich– The name says exactly what the blog aims to do.
3. Wise Bread- Advice on saving, investing, Financial Planning, and reducing debt with straightforward explanations and real-life situations.
4. Mr. Money Mustache– A wide variety of money-saving tips, tricks, and hacks
5. Money Crashers– A well-written blog from financial industry teachers and advisors.

Automobile Blogs

Automobile bloggers tap into this love for anything and everything on four wheels, bringing their followers a wide range of car and truck topics. 

Classic and collectible car blogs are hugely popular, especially the famed “muscle cars” that came out of Detroit in the 1960s and 70s. 

Customizing a car is a huge hobby, and many automobile blogs focus on customization tips, hacks, and techniques. 

There are numerous blog topics in the automobile blogging niche, from those focusing on one specific automobile brand to others that dig into the history of cars and the many revolutionary advancements made in the auto industry. 

How to repair and refurbish cars and trucks is a huge subtopic, especially among the DIY car repair crowd. 

Some blogs focus on investing in cars and flipping cars for extra cash.

Car bloggers travel the world searching for, driving, and reviewing cars, and some of the perks include invites to exclusive car shows and auctions. 

Automotive products are always given to car bloggers for reviews and mentions, and some of the top auto bloggers are world-famous. 

One of the best automotive car blogs today is Jalopnik which features a wide range of automobile topics, news, and reviews. 

One of the most trusted auto blogs today is produced by Motor Trend, whose original print magazine dates back to 1949. 

The Top 5 auto blogs include:

1. YourMechanic– The ultimate go-to blog for repairing and diagnosing auto problems.
2. Motor Verso-  Luxury, high-performance cars are the focus of this excellent blog.
3. Motor Trend– One of the best automotive blogs written by a premier American automotive magazine.
4. Car Talk– This blog is for you if you want your car to go faster.
5. Girls Auto Clinic Blog– An excellent automotive blog geared toward women who love cars. 

Wedding and Bridal Blogs

The wedding industry is one of the biggest globally, especially in the United States and many other countries, popular for honeymooners. 

Millions of people get married yearly, and thousands of wedding and bridal bloggers help them prepare for the big day! 

The sheer volume of different wedding blogs is astounding, as well as the number of subtopics in the wedding blog niche.

Many bridal blogs focus, of course, on the bride, including her all-important gown. 

Other wedding blogs focus on planning the event, what food to eat, and how to have your wedding outdoors. 

There are thousands of wedding photography blogs and even super-niche blogs about wedding cakes. 

One very popular wedding blog niche is how to throw a wedding party on a budget or have the wedding reception at home. 

The Top 5 wedding and bridal blogs include:

1. Ruffled– Advice on throwing a luxurious wedding along with DIY guides and honeymoon planning tips.
2. Love, Inc–  One of the more engaging wedding blogs specializing in inclusivity.
3. The Knot– Your One-Stop source for everything you need to know to get married.
4. Green Wedding Shoes– A fashion-focused wedding blog for everyone from the bride to the flower girls and ring bearers.
5. A Practical Wedding–  Tips, budgets, and timelines to help you get through your wedding day unscathed.

Business and Entrepreneurship Blogs

When you ask many of the most successful entrepreneurs and business people what they owe their success, many will answer with one word; reading. 

Not surprisingly, if you press further, many successful business people will admit that a lot of the information they read comes from business blogs.

Blogs that focus on starting a business from scratch are very popular,  especially today, as entrepreneurship continues to be popular. 

Many business blogs focus on changes in a specific industry, while others delve into the ins and outs of marketing, advertising, and brand building. 

As with many of the most popular blogging topics, there are hundreds of different subtopics in the business and entrepreneurship blogging space.

If you’re going to be a business and entrepreneurship blogger, one caveat is that your knowledge must be on point. 

It’s one thing, for example, to give someone advice on how to bake a cake or make their own table from scrap wood. 

It’s another altogether to advise someone on investing a quarter of a million dollars in a new business. 

Business Insider is an excellent example of a well-run, insightful, impactful business blog. 

From the latest economic news to interviews with top entrepreneurs, trend analyses, and market predictions, thousands of business people start their day with this excellent blog. 

The Top 5 Business Blogs include

1. Business Insider – The best business journalism in blog form.
2. Entrepreneur –  Interviews, book reviews, and business news.
3. Fast Company– The latest advice and Leadership ideas on growing a business.
4. Harvard Business Review – Well-written, influential articles make this a must-read business blog.
5. Small Business Trends – The top small business trends include marketing, management, and technology.

News Blogs

News today travels around the world at lightning speed. 

Depending on what news is important to you, you can read one of the thousands of news blogs that will fill you in on the latest stories and the people at their center. 

News bloggers come in a wide variety of flavors, from business news to entertainment, sports, religion, and international news, to name just a few.

Today, people are looking for news sources they can rely on to provide fair, unbiased accounts of what’s happening and every news story’s who, what, where, and why.  

The Top 4 news blogs include:

1. The Daily Beast– With over a million visitors daily, The Daily Beast is just that, a news beast.
2. Mashable– The best blog if you want the latest on culture, technology, and video entertainment.
3. HuffPost– Thousands of bloggers write for this major news blog covering every major category of news and most of the subcategories.
4. TechCrunch– All the news you need to know about the latest technological breakthroughs.

Marketing Blogs

If there’s one thing about the marketing industry, it is constantly changing. 

Trying to keep up with marketing is an almost impossible task for small and medium-sized business owners. 

To do it, many entrepreneurs and business owners look to various marketing blogs online.

Marketing bloggers engage their readers with the latest marketing trends, how to improve marketing campaigns, and the newest marketing technologies. 

There are quite a few subtopics in the marketing blogosphere, from content and digital marketing to social media, SEO, email, you name it.

Some of the most popular marketing blogs are known for taking confusing subjects and simplifying them for the layperson.

Others give solid advice on running digital marketing campaigns as well as real-world, brick-and-mortar marketing. 

There are, of course, plenty of blogs that focus on marketing trends and best practices. 

The top 4 marketing blogs include:

1. Digiday–  Covers a wide array of digital marketing topics, including online marketing, video marketing, and blog posts.
2. Content Marketing Institute–  One of the best blogs for content marketing being digitally published today.
3. Copyblogger– All you need to know about the most important part of selling online; the copy.
4. Social Media Today– An excellent blog for best business practices when marketing via social media.

The Most Popular and Most Profitable Topics to Blog About: Honorable Mentions

Today’s list of the most popular blogging topics features the best of the best, but there are so many others we felt it necessary to give several more at least a shout-out! 

Below are the best of the rest of the blog topics:

• Affiliate Marketing Blogs
• Pet Blogs
• Product Reviews Blogs
• Gaming Blogs
• Interior Design Blogs
• Personal Blogs
• Sports Blogs
• Life Hacks Blogs
• Mental Health Blogs
• Lifestyle Blogs

Now You Understand The Most Popular Blogging Topics 

Today’s list of the most popular blogging topics is relatively short compared to the absolutely massive variety of blogs you’ll find online at any given moment. 

Of course, the biggest challenge is finding the time to write and edit a blog, especially as an entrepreneur or small business owner. 

Still need a little help? 

Contact us today! 

Also, don’t forget to sign up for free and check out our free SEO resources. 

The post The Most Popular (and Most Profitable) Topics to Blog About appeared first on The HOTH.

While it’s true that you should always try to put out the best quality content possible, the classic ‘quality beats quantity’ adage fails to take into account one very important thing. 

What’s that?

It’s that a large amount of content doesn’t have to be mediocre by default. 

It’s possible to churn out high-quality content on a mass scale, and the companies that do so see incredible results. 

That brings us to an essential SEO metric that’s often overlooked or completely ignored– content velocity. 

It’s a valuable metric to monitor because search engines view websites with a higher content velocity as more authoritative. This is a fact confirmed by Google’s John Mueller, who states, “It’s hard to call a site authoritative with only 30 pieces of content.” 

The quote goes against the ‘less is more mentality of the ‘quality over quantity adage. 

So if you want Google to take your website seriously, you’ll need to engage in more frequent content production. You’ll enjoy the best of both worlds if you uphold high-quality standards for your releases. 

Read on to learn more about content velocity, why it matters, and how to calculate it for your competitors. 

What is Content Velocity?

Formally defined, your content velocity refers to the amount of content you release over a set period. 

For example, how many blog articles do you release each week? If you write two, that’s your content velocity for the week. You can also set different time periods, such as per month, year, or quarter. 

It’s a valuable metric to keep track of for your content marketing strategy, and it’s also wise to calculate the content velocity of your competitors. 

For instance, checking and calculating their content velocity may uncover the answer if a competitor is outranking you. If you’re only releasing two high-quality blogs a week, but they’re releasing 5, they’ll likely outrank you, as well as generate more traffic, leads, and sales due to their heightened output. 

Calculating content velocity is also an integral part of healthy content management, as it lets you know how much you’re spending on its production (as well as if you’re hitting your publish dates or not). 

Why does content velocity matter?

Content is undoubtedly king in today’s age, but there’s been a bit of oversaturation in recent years. 

Thousands of companies are all producing content, digital experiences, and digital assets across countless different channels. That’s begun to cause content fatigue of sorts among users, as what worked in the past won’t work now. 

Modern users crave personalized content and engaging customer experiences that don’t only educate but also entertain. 

There are:

• Blogs
• Videos
• Infographics
• eBooks
• Whitepapers
• Podcasts
• Vlogs

Besides these, there are countless other channels, which makes producing high-quality content at scale increasingly tricky. 

That’s why it’s crucial to get a grasp of your content velocity to ensure you’re on the right track. 

Not only could you not be producing enough content, but you could also be overproducing. Remember, you still want everything you release to be relevant, engaging, and purposeful for your audience, so spamming lots of useless articles isn’t a winning strategy. 

Reasons to Monitor Your Content Velocity 

Content velocity as a metric has many use cases, which is why you should start paying attention to it if you aren’t already. 

We’ve already discussed how Google views higher content velocity as more authoritative, which is a big reason why you should aim to increase your velocity if it’s too low. 

That poses a perplexing conundrum for new content creators, as you likely don’t have an extensive library of blogs, articles, and videos yet. Of course, you want to ensure your content lives up to your quality standards, but you also don’t want to get overlooked due to your lack of existing content. 

That’s a big reason why you should calculate your content velocity as well as your competitors, as it will help you determine your budget as well as what you need to do to compete with other websites. 

The primary reasons to monitor content velocity include the following:

• Convincing executives you need more resources for content 
• Uncovering the resources your competitors have 
• Estimating the cost of new content 

Each of these reasons is important, so let’s take a closer look at each one. 

Acquiring more resources for content creation 

Are you not able to release the same types of content as your competitors? Maybe they’ve started robust video campaigns that you don’t have the resources to compete with. 

If that’s the case, bring up the case to your executives. 

Show them the content velocity of your top competitors, and let them know that they’re destroying you in the search rankings as a result. 

If there’s one thing company executives can’t stand, it’s losing out to the competition. As such, they’re likely to give you the green light for more content creation, including all the resources you need to shoot high-quality videos. 

Even if you’re not losing the race, you can still press the issue with your superiors that you need to stay ahead. 

After all, if you take your foot off the gas, you’ll start to see your competitors in the rearview mirror in no time. 

That’s why you should also convince executives to not only catch up to competitor release schedules but to leave them behind in the dust. If you can maintain a higher content velocity with premium-quality releases, your competitors won’t stand a chance of outranking you. 

In short, never be shy about bringing up content velocity to executives and stakeholders to acquire more resources. 

Uncovering your competitor’s resources 

Not knowing the content creation capabilities of your competitors can be very frustrating. It can seem as if they have an infinite pool of resources at times. 

If only there were a way to discover your competitor’s resources. 

It turns out there is, and content velocity is the key to uncovering them. You’ll be able to determine how large their content creation team is, including any freelancers (writers, graphic designers, etc.). 

By conducting an in-depth investigation, you’ll be able to discover the following:

• How many people create content for the competition 
• The number of blogs they release each week, month, year 
• The average word count for each post 
• The average cost per page 
• The total cost for producing content (per the time period given) 

That’s invaluable information for coming up with ways to compete. If you can acquire the resources, it’s always best to outdo your competitor’s content velocity– not only for the authority boost but also for more traffic, leads, and sales. 

With an in-depth competitor audit, you can uncover all sorts of valuable insights (more on this in a bit). 

Estimating the cost of new content 

Want to compete with competitor content that offers personalized digital experiences?

If so, you’ll need to estimate what it will cost to make it happen. You can do that by paying attention to competitor content velocity. By calculating it, you’ll land on a precise number for how much they spend on content for any given time. 

That way, you’ll know precisely how much it will cost to create the same type of content. 

If you find that you come up a little short, try the advice mentioned in the first tip– bring it up to your executives. They likely won’t want to be outdone by competitors, which gives you a fighting chance to land the resources you need to compete. 

Remember, analyzing metrics isn’t always about finding things that were done right; it’s also about finding what competitors are doing wrong. 

For instance, let’s say a competitor launched an expensive new video campaign promoting a new product. 

Instead of blindly defaulting to monkey see, monkey do– dig a little deeper than that. In particular, take the time to see if users are actually engaging with their videos. 

If the campaign is generating little to no interest or traffic, it’s not worth copying. By only mimicking tactics that your competitors found success with, you’ll avoid wasting valuable time and resources by copying their failures. 

Calculating Content Velocity 

Now that you know what content velocity is and why it matters, it’s time to learn how to calculate it. 

This would be the part of the article where we share the simple, straightforward formula for determining content velocity. 

The only problem is there isn’t a straightforward way of calculating content velocity, as it’s actually quite complex in most cases. 

At its simplest, you can calculate it using only a few standard SEO tools, such as SEMrush and Screaming Frog. 

At its most complex, it can involve hours of sorting through emails, infographics, and PPC ad copy. 

It all comes down to how much content you have, as well as how many types. If the only type of content you have are blogs, calculating your velocity will be very simple. Yet, if you’re like most companies, you likely have a boatload of content spanning from blogs to client-nurturing emails. 

The SEMrush/Screaming Frog method 

Here’s a simple method you can try to calculate content velocity. First, you’ll need to uncover a website’s number of blog articles, which you can easily do with SEMrush‘s URL filter (show blogs only). 

Export the list and head over to Screaming Frog for a custom data extraction. That will let you know when the blog articles were published, allowing you to calculate the content velocity. 

Here are the extractions you should try:

• Metadata 
• Blog posting schema
• Article schema 

That should be enough to uncover the publish dates for the blog articles. You should also pay attention to the word count for each blog post. 

Why is that?

It’s because knowing the word count will help you determine how much the company paid for each article. 

Most copywriters and article-writing services charge $0.25 – $0.30 per word, which you can use to estimate their budget. So if a competitor has a blog that’s 1,000 words long, you can assume they paid anywhere from $250 – $300 to produce it. 

Bear in mind that this technique will only calculate content velocity for blogs. To calculate it for other types of content, you’ll need to run them through SEMrush and Screaming Frog as well. For instance, you could set the URL filter to only show videos and repeat the same process. 

Using Ahrefs 

Besides using SEMrush and Screaming Frog, you can also use Ahrefs to calculate competitor content velocity. 

In particular, their Content Explorer tool contains some valuable insights that you won’t find using the other method. To begin, bring up the tool and enter the URL of your competitor’s website. 

Once you enter the period you’re tracking, you’ll get to see a complete breakdown of all the articles published within that time frame. You’ll also get to see the following:

• Exact release dates 
• Word count 
• Social shares 
• Author name 
• Pages over time (a graph showing how many pages they’ve released in their lifespan) 
• Organic traffic 
• Referring domains 
• Domain rating 
• Traffic value 

As you can see, Ahrefs provides a ton of detailed metrics that are perfect for content velocity. You also get a metric for traffic value, which will save you from having to do any math. You also get to see the author’s name for each post, allowing you to unmask their content creation team. 

Another technique for uncovering article authors is to check company LinkedIn profiles. If you dig a little deeper, you may be able to uncover the rates writers charge your competitors, which will make your budget estimate even more accurate. 

Final Takeaways: Content Velocity in 2023 

That’s an overview of content velocity and why it matters for your SEO strategy. While creating premium quality content is undoubtedly crucial, that doesn’t mean there’s no merit for a large quantity of content. 

In fact, search engines like Google view established websites with a lot of content as more trustworthy and authoritative. 

That’s why you should focus on generating a healthy quantity of content with high-quality standards. 

You should regularly calculate content velocity for your own company and your competitors. That way, you’ll have a solid grasp of your competitors’ content strategy, as well as your own. 

Would you prefer a company to handle your SEO strategy instead?

If so, please don’t hesitate to check out our five-star managed SEO services at HOTH X.    

The post Content Velocity: What it is and Why it Matters in 2023 appeared first on The HOTH.

After awkwardly twiddling your thumbs for a moment, you remember that you have AI writing software that you can use to brainstorm new ideas, outline posts, restructure sentences, and even write complete drafts. 

While there was once a stigma surrounding AI writers, more complex language models (GPT-3) and advanced machine learning have since silenced the naysayers. 

It’s also important to note that AI writing software is NOT here to replace human writers. As robust as these AI tools are, they still cannot replicate human creativity, emotions, or passion. 

Instead of thinking of an AI writer as a replacement, think of it as an enhancement for your writing skills – essentially making you a half-robot writing superhero. 

In fact, it’s been proven that AI writing tools can increase business productivity by up to 40%. 

So if you’ve been staunchly against AI content writing, it’s time to see the light. 

That’s why we’ve put together this guide showing how using AI to write is actually a good thing and can improve not only your output but also the quality of your work. Read on to find out how. 

8 Benefits of Using AI Copywriting Tools 

AI tools are a fantastic way to supercharge your content creation. From getting rid of writer’s block for good to taking far less time to produce the first draft, AI tools have tons of uses for writers. 

Here’s a list of the top benefits you’ll enjoy by employing an AI writing assistant.  

#1: Produce content entirely free of grammar mistakes 

While AI tools can’t match human creativity and emotion, robots have us beat when it comes to accuracy. AI-generated content is entirely free of spelling and grammatical mistakes, so you’ll have to spend far less time proofreading. 

Beyond that, AI-powered proofreading tools such as Grammarly are always at work in the background, ready to highlight any mistakes you make. 

These tools can also suggest more concise ways of structuring your sentences, getting rid of the fluff and any unnecessary words. 

If you work with an editor, they’re sure to appreciate the fact that you took the time to proofread your article – and with the power of AI, you can do so in seconds. 

AI tools also factor in readability, which is highly advantageous, especially for bloggers producing long-form content. The AI will let you know if your sentences are too lengthy or if the overall document is too hard to read. 

That will tighten up your blogs, product descriptions, and landing pages – which will make it easier for readers to digest your content, boosting dwell time and conversion rates. 

#2: AI never sleeps or takes a break 

Another huge benefit of an AI writing assistant is that they will ALWAYS be there – even when you’re on vacation, sick, or having a bad day. 

Even if you’re an absentee employee due to a skull-piercing migraine, your AI content generator will still operate at 100% efficiency, which can help pick up your slack. That way, you can still meet deadlines and get your work done despite the way you feel. 

Say that you’re on vacation and have a piece of original content that’s due on the day of your return. 

Instead of spending your vacation outlining and writing a new post, you can simply have an AI writer knock out the project in its entirety. Then, you can quickly revise and edit the document on your return without missing a beat. 

#3: Save a ton of time 

Conducting research and outlining posts take up a lot of the time that goes into content creation. It’s a tedious process that’s long been a necessary evil. 

Yet, what if we said that you could completely do away with both processes?

AI writing tools make this dream a very real possibility. Many tools have the ability to provide a detailed outline for a post within seconds. They can also summarize research materials for you in no time. 

That way, you can take the AI-generated ad copy and pair it with your expertise, creativity, and insights. 

As a result, you’ll be able to produce content twice as fast as before, dramatically increasing your output. 

The best part?

The content AI tools produce is already SEO-optimized, with your target keywords already injected in the right spots. They also have built-in plagiarism checkers, so the content they produce is 100% original (it will check your original content for plagiarism, too). 

#4: Improve your content marketing ROI 

SEO and content marketing strategies involve a ton of manually written content. There are blogs, landing pages, emails, product descriptions, calls to action, and more. 

Having human writers tackle all these projects takes quite a bit of time and money. 

With an AI writing assistant, you can drastically reduce the resources required to produce your content. 

AI tools can produce high-quality content that only requires a few edits and tweaks from humans. 

That means you can start rolling out your SEO and blog strategies twice as fast, leading to quicker returns you spent far less on. 

Cleverly written AI articles will also help you generate more leads and conversions. The more pieces of content you can release to drive customers down your sales funnel, the better – and using AI to write is the most efficient way to do so. 

#5: Reduce costs yet higher quality 

Many artificial intelligence writers feature reasonable monthly subscription fees, which is a more cost-friendly option than most human writers. 

As such, your budget will benefit from incorporating AI writing assistants. 

Yet, that doesn’t mean that you should do away with human writers altogether, as you’ll still need them for editing, emotions, creativity, and passion. 

The best method is to use a combination of human and AI writers. Doing so will save you money and increase your efficiency and output, so it’s a true win-win. 

Even though you’ll be spending less on your content, the quality won’t take a dip. In fact, using AI to write will cause your quality to improve. 

Freelance writers can also take advantage of these benefits, as AI writing tools can help them meet their deadlines with ease (as well as take on more projects). After all, a solo freelance writer can only take on so much work – but with the help of AI writing tools, it becomes much easier to scale their business while remaining the only employee. 

#6: The end of writer’s block 

A huge benefit of using AI to write is that you’ll never run out of ideas, and we mean that in the most literal sense. If you’re ever experiencing writer’s block, all you need to do is bring up your AI writing assistant. 

Throw some topics into the tool, and let it work its magic. 

In seconds, you’ll be able to generate topic ideas, outlines, and even complete paragraphs to get your creative juices flowing. That way, you’ll have a much-needed jumping-off point to begin sparking your own ideas. 

In short, using AI to write is the ultimate remedy for writer’s block. Even in the most severe cases, you can let the AI write the entire post for you and then go back and add your own ideas after the fact. 

There’s no limit to the types of content that AI writers can produce, either. From marketing copy to business emails, applications like Jasper AI (formerly Jarvis) and Copymatic can handle them all with ease. 

Writer’s block is a notorious cause of anxiety amongst all writers that AI completely gets rid of, which is great for your mental health. 

#7: Update and repurpose existing content 

Content is king in this age, yet there are only so many topics to blog about in any given niche. That’s why there’s the need to update and retool existing content to grab new views and conversions. 

As a writer, coming up with different ways to talk about the same topics can be incredibly difficult at times. 

With an AI writing tool by your side, you will have an unlimited number of ways to talk about the same topics. As such, you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently update your old content, all while adding new insights and taking new angles on familiar subjects. 

It’s yet another way that AI writing tools can optimize your workflows to save valuable time and resources. 

#8: Outdo the competition  

With all the companies out there releasing content and trying to win the same audience you are, you need a secret weapon to stand out from the crowd. 

It’s an SEO best practice to outdo top-ranking content in order to take its place in the search engine results. 

AI writing software is perfect for finding ways to outdo your competitors. In particular, try to identify areas where they didn’t go into enough detail. With an AI writer, you can quickly uncover ways to add more depth to a competitor’s post, which will help you blow by them in the rankings. 

Using AI to Write Blog Posts: A Quick Guide 

Now that you know AI writing tools are the real deal, it’s time to learn how to use one to improve the quality of your content. 

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how to use AI to brainstorm, outline, and write a complete blog post. 

Step #1: Use AI to brainstorm topic ideas

If you can’t think of anything to post about, try typing some generic phrases into an AI writing tool. Here’s an example of what that might look like:

• User input: We create social media campaigns for clients. 
• AI tool output: How to Build a Successful Instagram Marketing Plan/ Best Practices of Social Media Campaigns/ 6 Common Social Media Campaign Mistakes 

Just like that, the AI tool generated three blog topic ideas that directly relate to the input phrase. Most AI tools will generate 4 – 8 results at a time, depending on your preferences. If you don’t like any of its suggestions, you can refresh the results to see brand-new ones. 

Step #2: Outline your new content 

Once you settle on a topic idea, you can use AI to create an outline for you. Here’s an example we got using the blog title How to Build a Successful Instagram Marketing Plan:

• How to get more followers
• Posting tips
• What type of images to post
• Tips for hashtags
• How to promote your account
• Conclusion

As you can see, you now have a complete outline for the post, including all the headers and a conclusion. That will clue you in on what you need to research to start writing the content. 

Step #3: Conduct AI-assisted research 

AI can help you save a ton of time during the research phase, too. Many AI tools have text summarizers that will help you get the gist of what lengthy articles are about in a few minutes. Essentially, they create ‘cliff notes that you can use to expedite your research. 

Genei is an AI-powered tool that excels in this regard, and Copymatic has a text summarizer that you can use, too. 

Step #4: Draft and edit the article 

Now you’re ready to knock out the article. You can use the AI generator to write the post for you, or you can only use it whenever you hit a brick wall. 

If you’re having a hard time phrasing a sentence or paragraph, the AI tool can help you come up with the most optimal way to do so. 

Once the AI generates content, it’s imperative to edit it yourself. Check the copy for accuracy, plagiarism, natural flow, and human emotions. Along the way, interject your own thoughts and ideas to enhance the quality of the writing. Once you run a grammatical check (which should happen automatically for generated content), you’ve got a whole post ready to publish. 

Final Thoughts: Using AI to Write Better Content 

By now, you should have a better understanding of the benefits of using AI writing software programs and how to use them. 

Instead of replacing human writers outright, these programs serve as a way to bolster the efforts of writers in numerous ways. From getting rid of writer’s block to outdoing competitor content, AI writing tools are certainly the way of the future. 

Do you need five-star blog writing services for your company?

Then don’t hesitate to check out HOTH Blogger, our renowned blogging service where we create outstanding content for your website.    

The post How Using AI to Write Content Actually Helps its Quality  appeared first on The HOTH.

What was it for?

The algorithm update aimed to get rid of unhelpful content that appears on Google Search – primarily what qualifies as ‘search-engine first’ content that provides little value to readers. 

In particular, search-engine first content exists to manipulate the Google algorithm to rank high and generate traffic but has little substance. 

Examples include content that lacks any first-hand experience, generic listicles that only serve to generate affiliate commissions, and blogs that lack a central theme or focus. 

The update also promised to place more emphasis on ‘people-first content,’ which refers to content that provides real value to searchers. 

Now that we’re a month beyond the Helpful Content Update’s initial implementation, how well has it worked? Is the internet now free of all low-quality content?

In short, no. 

In fact, Google’s update hasn’t had much of an impact, leading some to declare it a red herring of sorts.

Yet, that doesn’t mean you should completely ignore the update. Instead, focusing on creating people-first content is highly effective for SEO, so it won’t hurt to follow Google’s guidelines. Stay tuned to learn more about the update as well as how to tweak your content for it. 

What is the Helpful Content Update Anyway?

If you’re not an SEO news junkie, you may not have heard about Google’s Helpful Content Update.  

On August 18th, Google announced its Helpful Content Update as a response to the growing criticism over the quality and relevance of Google’s search results. 

Why the concern?

It turns out many users reported frequently landing on low-quality content that didn’t provide relevant answers or a satisfying experience. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be an issue if the content wasn’t ranked high – but the users all reported that poor-quality web pages showed up in the top 5 results. 

That’s not good news for Google, as their goal is to connect users with the highest quality, most relevant content on the web. That way, the user finds what they’re looking for while only having to click on one result. 

What caused the influx of unhelpful content that ranks high on Google?

In short, search engine optimization techniques are to blame. That’s not to dock SEO by any means, as it’s an incredibly effective marketing technique when done right. The problem comes from “black-hat” SEO content that exists to rank high but provides no actual value to humans. 

These content creators commonly take shortcuts and merely create content containing targeted keywords. Yet, this content only summarizes what others have already said and provides no unique first-hand experience or direct answers. 

That proves frustrating to human searchers, as the top 5 results for any given query may contain SEO spam – forcing them to look for other sources. 

What Qualifies as Unhelpful Content?

With all the unhelpful content out there, Google decided to take action with its Helpful Content Update. 

How does it work?

It added a new site-wide signal that it now considers along with its existing ranking signals. The algorithm can now automatically identify low-value content, which then gets the ‘cold shoulder’ from Google search. 

Not only that, but sites that are determined to have large amounts of unhelpful content will negatively affect the helpful content that they do have. 

In other words, if a website contains 80% low-grade content but a few amazingly valuable posts, those high-quality posts will get lumped in with the rest, so they won’t perform well on the SERPs either. 

That means that website owners should aim to get rid of as much search engine-first content on their sites to salvage their people-first content. Otherwise, you could ruin your valuable articles with AI-written content and affiliate listicles. 

Here are the guidelines for what Google considers unhelpful content:

• Posts that only rehash what others have already said 
• Websites that publish thousands of articles on many random topics 
• A lack of first-hand experience 
• Content that makes false promises
• Articles filled with fluff to hit a specific word count 
• Only publishing articles on trending topics instead of using your expertise 

This type of content is what Google claims the algorithm is now on the lookout for, so be wary. 

What Qualifies as Helpful Content?

Now that you know what Google considers search engine-first content, what qualifies as helpful content?

In short, all websites should now follow the E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) guidelines, not just YMYL (your money, your life) sites. 

Google will always favor content that displays real expertise and links to authoritative and trustworthy sources. The E-A-T acronym is used to increase search visibility for sites related to health and finance. 

Yet, with the Helpful Content Update, it seems Google is now applying E-A-T to all websites (so they say, more on the impact of the update in a bit). 

Here are some additional guidelines for what Google considers people-first content:

• Websites that have a clear niche or target audience they cater to are preferred.
• Content that demonstrates first-hand expertise and a noticeable depth of knowledge (i.e., actually using a product or visiting a location).
• Sites that have a central theme or focus will receive preferential treatment. 
• Google favors content that satisfies a user entirely without returning to the SERPs.
• Websites that follow Google’s guidance for core updates and product reviews will have increased visibility.
• Content that provides a satisfying user experience is preferred.

These are the factors Google claims the algorithm now looks for during the indexing process. Since the update is now complete, how accurate have these guidelines proved to be? Let’s find out. 

The Helpful Content Update’s Impact So Far (Or Lack Thereof) 

As of October 2022, the impact of the Helpful Content Update has been … minimal at best. 

Ever since its announcement, SEOs everywhere have been keeping a close eye on SERP data analytics in anticipation of a big bang of sorts. 

Yet, even after the update was completed on September 9th, the big bang never happened. 

What actually happened?

That’s not to say that the Helpful Content Update didn’t have any impact at all, though; it just didn’t affect the areas everyone anticipated. 

The website categories that saw the most impact were:

• Ringtones
• Coding pages
• Lyrics pages 

Besides these highly specific pages, certain websites appeared to have an impact due to the update. 

Yet, upon closer inspection, it was revealed that a majority of these pages saw a rise or drop in search engine visibility because of other reasons, and the timing was simply a coincidence. 

For instance, Moz’s Dr. Peter J. Meyers discovered that the visibility for whitehouse.gov saw a dramatic upturn (+54%) starting on August 25th, the day the Helpful Content Update started rolling out. 

At first glance, it appeared that the update was doing its job. Whitehouse.gov certainly favors people-first content, so it made sense that they’d see a boost in rankings and search traffic due to the update. 

A bit more digging revealed that the search rankings spike was due to one page, particularly their piece on Biden forgiving student loan debt that dropped on August 24th (which caused a subsequent media storm). Thus, it was determined that the increased visibility was due to the heightened media interest and probably not the update. 

Was it all a clever PR campaign?

There’s a lot of evidence suggesting that the Helpful Content Update was more of a PR campaign than anything else. 

Why is that?

One clue comes from the name itself, as it dramatically differs from the other core updates, which all had meaningless names like Panda and Hummingbird. 

Instead, the Helpful Content Update is more similar to the Mobile Friendliness and Page Experience updates, which both explicitly state what they’re about in the name. In nearly every mention of the update, the message ‘Google is becoming even more helpful’ comes across front and center. 

Another clue is that Google announced the update far before it happened, which is rare. For most core updates, there’s little to no communication or buzz surrounding them at all or only after they’re done rolling out.

In the case of the Helpful Content Update, Google was very talkative, and the update was a hot news topic for two weeks and even reached some mainstream news publications. 

They also laid out clear guidelines for SEOs, letting them know how what to do and what not to do in terms of content creation, which is another rarity. Google even reached out to influential SEOs before the official announcement, which is a common PR technique (similar to using social media influencers to get the word out about a product or service). 

What was the message?

Viewed in the context of a PR campaign, the Helpful Content Update starts to make a lot more sense. Due to all the attention surrounding it, they were able to establish two clear messages:

1. Google search is becoming more helpful than ever, and searchers won’t have to worry about running into low-quality content as much. 
2. SEOs should focus on people-first content and abandon search-engine-first content – which can help limit the amount of junk and AI spam being produced by word of mouth alone. 

That’s not to say that the update didn’t do anything at all. Rather, it’s a new site-wide signal that Google will continue to use as a ranking factor. According to Sullivan, Google plans to continue refining and strengthening the signal. 

Beyond that, there’s a lot of speculation surrounding the two-week core update Google began implementing as soon as the Helpful Content Update was complete. Unlike the HCU, there was no announcement or press surrounding this update, which has caught the attention of some. 

In particular, SEOs are hypothesizing that this new update will build upon the HCU to form a powerful one-two punch. 

Could this lead to the drastic results initially promised by the Helpful Content Update? Only time will tell. 

SEO Best Practices Moving Forward 

Whether the HCU amounts to anything or not, Google’s guidelines for content creators are sound and align with existing SEO best practices – so it won’t hurt to follow them. 

Here are some tips for creating high-quality content that’s valuable to readers AND search engines – granting you the best of both worlds. 

• Get a central focus. Google doesn’t care for websites that cover every topic under the sun, so make sure your new content strategy has a clear niche or theme tying it all together. 
• Sufficiently answer user questions. High-quality writing content that leads to conversions is all about solving pain points and answering user questions. Provide in-depth answers, and don’t reiterate existing solutions from other articles. 
• Don’t stray off-topic. Going on extended tangents is a no-no for SEO content. Ensure you outline every piece before writing so you stay on topic. 
• Don’t make false claims. According to the HCU, Google’s algorithm is now on the lookout for answers to questions that have no answer – such as a release date for a TV that isn’t out yet. If you’re going to make a claim, do your best to ensure it’s 100% factual before publishing it. 

As long as you follow these guidelines for your content marketing in the future, the Helpful Content Update shouldn’t affect you – even if it gets a boost from the new two-week update. 

Concluding Thoughts: Google’s Helpful Content Update 

By now, you should better understand the HCU and Google’s reasoning behind it. Most SEOs agree that it was primarily a PR campaign and a successful one. 

Yet, there’s no denying that it is an actual site-wide ranking signal that Google will continue to use. They’ve also publicly stated their disappointment in the effectiveness of the update, so they’re bound to make adjustments to it in the future. 

Are you in need of an SEO strategy that takes all of Google’s new guidelines and updates into account? Then don’t wait to check out our elite-level managed SEO services at HOTH X.   

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